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Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology
With an estimated 250 million adherents, the Orthodox Church is the second largest Christian body in the world. This absorbing account of the essential elements of Eastern Orthodox thought deals with the Trinity, Christ, sin, humanity and creation as well as praying, icons, the sacraments and liturgy.
172 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2013
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About the author
Andrew Louth
59 books48 followersAndrew Louth is an Eastern Orthodox theologian and priest of the Russian Orthodox Church.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
December 11, 2014
Eastern Orthodoxy is largely unknown territory to me. Icons, mosaics, standing worship, the liturgy and prayers are not part of my experience. Andrew Louth gives us a clear and beautifully written description of this world rooted in the theological beliefs that give shape to Orthodox practice, which itself shapes Orthodox belief. In Orthodoxy, one believes what one prays.
Louth starts with the sources that inform Orthodox theology which include scripture, the Fathers, the Councils, and the liturgy. This last was illuminating to me in understanding that Orthodoxy is not simply rooted in the Seven Ecumenical councils but also in the Fathers and in the liturgical practice of the church.
Louth then walks us through a "systematic" overview of Orthodox theology, beginning with the doctrine of God, the creation, Christ, sin, death, and repentance, being human, sacraments and icons, time and liturgy and eschatology. His chapter on the Trinity was for me worth the price of admission as an example of both careful and reflective thought about the God to whom we pray. Under the category of creation, his exploration of the idea of sophiology, that creation came about through God's work via Wisdom, a contested idea, was intriguing in terms of asking the question of what would be the nature of such a creation.
His treatment of Christology helps us understand how the Church as a whole came to understand what it means to affirm Christ as both fully God and fully human. Under sin, death, and repentance, the notion of ancestral, as opposed to original sin stood out as of interest--that instead of being responsible for Adam's sin and sharing in it, we've inherited a sinful nature from the first couple. Regarding being human, he explores the notion of Sobornost, the community shaped around common, Conciliar belief and the notion of theosis, or the divinization that is our destiny, not that we become gods but that we are drawn into the being of God, fully reflecting God's image.
The next two chapters explore some of the most distinctive aspects of Orthodoxy in its emphasis on the physical via sacrament and icon, and in the liturgy. Under this latter, the focus on how infinite space and timelessness are brought into the time and space practice of the liturgy helped me grasp the sense of mystery and wonder that accompanies Orthodox worship. Then his last chapter explores the last things. Most distinctive here were the discussion of how the eucharist brings the future into the present and his concluding discussion of damnation and the possibility discussed by Orthodox theologians like Timothy Kallistos Ware (as well as Rob Bell!) that the greatness of God's love at least allows the possibility of a final universal salvation of all rational beings.
Reading this gave me a glimpse into the Orthodox world and an appreciation for the deep embrace of Orthodoxy of its adherents. I was reminded how much we share in common because of the shared affirmations of the Seven Councils. I was impressed that Orthodoxy has much to contribute to contemporary discussions of Trinitarian theology and the nature of God. The physicality of Orthodox practice challenges the latent gnosticism of much of Western Christianity. I was also aware of the places where we part ways including the concluding points of the book about universal salvation (which would not be embraced by all Orthodox).
What was most significant for me was simply to listen to this voice from within Eastern Orthodoxy that helped me understand the ethos and pathos of Orthodoxy as well as the logos of its doctrine. Louth, as well as theologians like Timothy Kallistos Ware have performed an important work in promoting understanding that might begin to heal this longest-standing divide in Christendom.
Louth starts with the sources that inform Orthodox theology which include scripture, the Fathers, the Councils, and the liturgy. This last was illuminating to me in understanding that Orthodoxy is not simply rooted in the Seven Ecumenical councils but also in the Fathers and in the liturgical practice of the church.
Louth then walks us through a "systematic" overview of Orthodox theology, beginning with the doctrine of God, the creation, Christ, sin, death, and repentance, being human, sacraments and icons, time and liturgy and eschatology. His chapter on the Trinity was for me worth the price of admission as an example of both careful and reflective thought about the God to whom we pray. Under the category of creation, his exploration of the idea of sophiology, that creation came about through God's work via Wisdom, a contested idea, was intriguing in terms of asking the question of what would be the nature of such a creation.
His treatment of Christology helps us understand how the Church as a whole came to understand what it means to affirm Christ as both fully God and fully human. Under sin, death, and repentance, the notion of ancestral, as opposed to original sin stood out as of interest--that instead of being responsible for Adam's sin and sharing in it, we've inherited a sinful nature from the first couple. Regarding being human, he explores the notion of Sobornost, the community shaped around common, Conciliar belief and the notion of theosis, or the divinization that is our destiny, not that we become gods but that we are drawn into the being of God, fully reflecting God's image.
The next two chapters explore some of the most distinctive aspects of Orthodoxy in its emphasis on the physical via sacrament and icon, and in the liturgy. Under this latter, the focus on how infinite space and timelessness are brought into the time and space practice of the liturgy helped me grasp the sense of mystery and wonder that accompanies Orthodox worship. Then his last chapter explores the last things. Most distinctive here were the discussion of how the eucharist brings the future into the present and his concluding discussion of damnation and the possibility discussed by Orthodox theologians like Timothy Kallistos Ware (as well as Rob Bell!) that the greatness of God's love at least allows the possibility of a final universal salvation of all rational beings.
Reading this gave me a glimpse into the Orthodox world and an appreciation for the deep embrace of Orthodoxy of its adherents. I was reminded how much we share in common because of the shared affirmations of the Seven Councils. I was impressed that Orthodoxy has much to contribute to contemporary discussions of Trinitarian theology and the nature of God. The physicality of Orthodox practice challenges the latent gnosticism of much of Western Christianity. I was also aware of the places where we part ways including the concluding points of the book about universal salvation (which would not be embraced by all Orthodox).
What was most significant for me was simply to listen to this voice from within Eastern Orthodoxy that helped me understand the ethos and pathos of Orthodoxy as well as the logos of its doctrine. Louth, as well as theologians like Timothy Kallistos Ware have performed an important work in promoting understanding that might begin to heal this longest-standing divide in Christendom.
September 21, 2018
I suppose I should begin by stating that I am a thoroughgoing Presbyterian (dare I say Calvinist?). However, I have a deep respect for the other major sects of the Christian faith - meaning Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, other Protestants can bother me, but then again I'm Presbyterian. I'm really not sure if this book was helpful in cultivating a more generous and holistic understanding of Eastern Orthodoxy, and I'm hesitant to blame the author for that necessarily. What dawned on me while reading this book is that perhaps my balance of "ratio" (rational, discursive thought) and "intellectus" (contemplative, meditative vision), to borrow an idea from Josef Pieper, was a little bit skewed to the "ratio" side (did I mention that I'm Presbyterian?). I was constantly on the look out for E.O.'s framework, hermeneutics, anthropology, etc., and it always seemed to be eluding me.
It is a powerful moment when you realize how a way of thinking and seeing the world has become so ingrained into you that you struggle to come to terms with a different perspective. It just doesn't make sense; incomprehensible in some respects. That's how I felt walking away from this book - kind of dumbfounded and frustrated with myself. Not because Eastern Orthodox itself is just utterly incoherent or incomprehensible, but that it is a perspective that I have no exposure to or experience with. And, quite frankly, that discovery in and of itself made this book worth reading.
If I had to respond to the content itself within this work, it is simple and is well-grounded within the tradition of the church. E.O. seems very reliant on that church tradition along with writings of the church fathers and various ecumenical, or non-ecumenical, councils that have occurred throughout the centuries. This is all well and fine, and I appreciate historical tradition as much as the next guy, but my Protestant tendencies made me wince a little at a number of points. If my balance was skewed slightly to "ratio", this book made Eastern Orthodox appear to be about 99% "intellectus". And that makes conversation tough, and makes points of concurrence between us slippery. All in all, I'm glad I read this book, and it would probably be worthwhile to read one or two other "Introducing Eastern Orthodoxy" type books to gather some other viewpoints.
It is a powerful moment when you realize how a way of thinking and seeing the world has become so ingrained into you that you struggle to come to terms with a different perspective. It just doesn't make sense; incomprehensible in some respects. That's how I felt walking away from this book - kind of dumbfounded and frustrated with myself. Not because Eastern Orthodox itself is just utterly incoherent or incomprehensible, but that it is a perspective that I have no exposure to or experience with. And, quite frankly, that discovery in and of itself made this book worth reading.
If I had to respond to the content itself within this work, it is simple and is well-grounded within the tradition of the church. E.O. seems very reliant on that church tradition along with writings of the church fathers and various ecumenical, or non-ecumenical, councils that have occurred throughout the centuries. This is all well and fine, and I appreciate historical tradition as much as the next guy, but my Protestant tendencies made me wince a little at a number of points. If my balance was skewed slightly to "ratio", this book made Eastern Orthodox appear to be about 99% "intellectus". And that makes conversation tough, and makes points of concurrence between us slippery. All in all, I'm glad I read this book, and it would probably be worthwhile to read one or two other "Introducing Eastern Orthodoxy" type books to gather some other viewpoints.
March 23, 2023
Systematic Theology reading. This was a helpful book on Eastern Orthodoxy. Eastern thinkers write very differently than western thinkers…
June 1, 2015
For the average reader, I found this book to be all to often inaccessible and more complex than introductory. Rather, I would suggest that this is a concise overview of the main points of Orthodox theology rather than an effective introduction to the subject. The author assumes a prior knowledge of theological studies, without which I found it difficult to fully engage with and understand many of the points covered. All too often, information is presented in a concise and effective manner, but without the necessary context to make it accessible to readers. This is not a terrible book, but it is a poorly named one and while informational, it fails to achieve what it's title suggests.
March 15, 2021
This book is my first (serious) engagement with eastern orthodoxy. It's given me an answer to some questions, though it has raised many more, and has only deepened my spiritual hunger (which I suppose is the entire point of an introduction). Still, I'm a bit hesitant at Louths preference for citing sophiologists. Despite being someone who (whatever church I'll tend towards) will be a convert for the simple reason of being raised in a atheist home, I ironically tend to view certain behaviours of converts with suspicion (and self-suspicion). Most blatant examples are of course the online reactionaries with anime avatars who convert out of some fawning over Putin. However, there's also for a doubt (and again, self-doubt) over all too intellectual conversions: people who convert out of fascination with some heterodox minor movement. Which then further stray from orthodoxy by reading into it their own desires or ethical presumptions (often on a premise said theology would mesh better with contemporary liberal values). In either case conversion has more to do with making a statement within the milieu one supposedly has left behind, rather than approaching a faith on its own terms.
I should make it clear I'm not accusing Louth of in any way or form 'lacking faith' (or that I should be his better), but I'd also like to read some texts with relies on a more 'mainstream' perspective. Or at least a perspective that doesn't appear so (maybe deceptively?) rationalist and humanist.
I should make it clear I'm not accusing Louth of in any way or form 'lacking faith' (or that I should be his better), but I'd also like to read some texts with relies on a more 'mainstream' perspective. Or at least a perspective that doesn't appear so (maybe deceptively?) rationalist and humanist.
June 23, 2022
I love the level of difficulty in what Andrew Louth writes here, a good mix of complexity and essentials that are good for the beginner and a more well-traveled theologian. It is lacking in showing how and where exactly the eastern orthodox theology differs from the western denominations if you are not good at knowing exactly what the different denominations believe, but it is not a big lack because, in the end, you have some kind of a grasp of what Eastern Orthodox theology is about and that seems to be enough to at least get an idea(especially if you compare to your own beliefs).
The amount of history here is also inspiring and something I love to read about but it's worth noticing that the Eastern Orthodox church has their favorites of the Chruch fathers, and puts more weight and trust if for example the Gospel of James without discussing it's credibility much. The authority of Chruch Fathers and early theologians and even some mystics seem to be important, and things that differ is more the emphasis on parts of the theology than theology in itself. For instance, the emphasis on icons is a point of connection with God together with prayer, something other denominations put elsewhere (like direct connection with the Spirit, through statues, through the eucharist etc.) without denouncing the use of icons per ce.
This book also gave a lot of future reading ideas as Louth made sure to mention the sources and as such this book can be used as a jumping board for further investigations.
The amount of history here is also inspiring and something I love to read about but it's worth noticing that the Eastern Orthodox church has their favorites of the Chruch fathers, and puts more weight and trust if for example the Gospel of James without discussing it's credibility much. The authority of Chruch Fathers and early theologians and even some mystics seem to be important, and things that differ is more the emphasis on parts of the theology than theology in itself. For instance, the emphasis on icons is a point of connection with God together with prayer, something other denominations put elsewhere (like direct connection with the Spirit, through statues, through the eucharist etc.) without denouncing the use of icons per ce.
This book also gave a lot of future reading ideas as Louth made sure to mention the sources and as such this book can be used as a jumping board for further investigations.
August 16, 2024
Thoroughly unenjoyable. Poor sentence structure, wordy with run on sentences that said little. Too many headings did not match the text of their sections. Author relies too much on overlong block quotations. I do not see any reason to spend THAT much time on biological evolution in an “introduction” to theology, not only is it hardly relevant, the text barely supplied an answer. That was a major problem I had with most of this book, consistently nebulous content without ever coming to the point.
February 25, 2023
“We start with God, not as knowing him, but as standing before a mystery that is, and will remain, beyond our understanding.”
November 19, 2022
Excellent introduction! Would have liked an exploration of pneumatology within Eastern Orthodox thought.
December 22, 2014
I think that as a westerner I was expecting more of a systematic theology book. Instead, what I found was a totally new way of thinking about humanity and our relationships with each other, the world, the church, and our creator. All of these relationships seem to be interconnected, putting much less emphasis on our selves, and more on those particular relationships. It's a very refreshing view, and instead of concentrating on my personal sin and how to deal with it, this new way of thinking helps me to concentrate more on Christ.
There were some parts of the book where I felt my mind wandering. I have never been a fan of philosophy, and it seems that Orthodox theology draws from philosophy. But even so, reading this book was a rewarding experience.
There were some parts of the book where I felt my mind wandering. I have never been a fan of philosophy, and it seems that Orthodox theology draws from philosophy. But even so, reading this book was a rewarding experience.
June 25, 2018
This was a really good read. It's a thorough and well-referenced introduction to the beliefs of the Eastern Orthodox church. Unlike many introductory texts, this one does not shy away from handing the reader challenging ideas. It really allows you to engage with the difficult questions.
I took a few notes as I was reading. I've included what I hope is the most interesting of them below.
Chapters One and Two - The first two chapters venture little outside of that which is common to the majority of Christian denominations.
The main takeaway from the first two chapters has been the centrality of mysteries in Orthodox worship. At the core of Orthodox tradition is a sense that God is unknowable, and that it is only through meditating on that unknowableness that closeness to Christ can be obtained. Louth expands on this concept of mystery during a brief discussion on the writings of John Damascene:
... John explores what we can make of the holy Trinity. [...] he starts by emphasizing that this is all beyond our comprehension, all we can hope for is to avoid misunderstanding that will lead us away from God rather than open our hearts to him.
The presentation of the Trinity is basically in line with most major modern churches (this doctrine was established prior to any of the major schisms:
The persons of the Trinity are not separate from each other, as human persons are, rather they interpenetrate one another. Without losing their distinctness as persons, their reality coincides or coinheres.
What is more likely to be different, is the centrality of the meditation on the unknowableness of God and particularly on his Trinitarian nature. This is presented as an extension of an apophatic approach to theology (meaning that God can only be meaningfully described in terms of what he is not, rather than what he is - as his complete nature is unknowable). Louch concludes Chapter Two with a quote from Vladimir Lossky's The Mystic Theology of the Eastern Church:
We have had again and again, in the course of our study of the mystical theology of the Eastern Church, to refer to the apophatic attitude which is characteristic of its religious thought. As we have seen, the negations which draw attention to the divine incomprehensibility are not prohibitions upon knowledge: apophaticism, so far from being a limitation, enables us to transcend all concepts, every sphere of philosophical speculation. It is a tendency towards an ever-greater plenitude, in which knowledge is transformed into ignorance, the theology of concepts into contemplation, dogmas into experience of ineffable mysteries. It is, moreover, an existential theology involving man’s entire being, which sets him upon the way of union, which obliges him to be changed, to transform his nature that he may attain to the true gnosis which is the contemplation of the Holy Trinity. Now, this ‘change of heart’, this metanoia, means repentance. The apophatic way of Eastern theology is the repentance of the human person before the face of the living God.
Chapter Three - This chapter focuses on the creation story in Genesis. It begins with an analysis as to whether God could be said to have created the world ex nihilo, or whether he simply formed the world out of preexisting material. The story in Genesis itself seems inexplicit. Louth relies on 2 Maccabees to argue for ex nihilo - which is somewhat interesting, as the books of the Maccabees are not considered canonical by mainstream protestant denominations.
Louth goes on to discuss the mysterious antinomy of creation and the created. He attempts to resolve how beings can be at once created by God (and therefore seperate from him) as well as at one with God at the same time. He shows the an early account of the idea of delineation between the physical and spiritual by quoting from Plato's Phaedo:
On the one hand we have that which is divine, immortal, indestructible, of a single form, accessible to thought, ever constant and abiding true to itself; and the soul is very like it: on the other hand we have that which is human, mortal, destructible, of many forms, inaccessible to thought, never constant nor abiding true to itself; and the body is very like that.
However, in Christianity, this delineation becomes less clear, as the God of Christianity is by definition accessible (through the Holy Spirit). This returns again to the concept of mystery, as outlined by Gregory of Nyasa:
God. This leads, first of all and notably, in St Gregory of Nyssa, to the notion that, as the soul draws nearer and nearer to God, it doesn’t find itself on ‘home territory’, so to speak; rather, in drawing closer and closer to a God who is utterly different from it, it realizes more and more poignantly that God is utterly unknowable.
Through this, the Orthodox approach to this antinomy could be said to be a gulf of understanding between the distant God and the imminent one, rather than a clear delineation. Because the distant God is fundamentally unknowable, as outlined by Gregory of Nyasa - it's not so much that the spiritual realm is distant, rather that we cannot grasp it.
Next, Louth addresses the idea of the Logoi of creation - the idea that there is reason, meaning, principle, etc. at the core of creation. The primary source for this is the famous passage from John 1:3:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
What we must remember is that the word 'Word' was not simply 'Word' in the original Greek, it was 'Logos', which can take many definitions, for example: reason, meaning, principle, etc. Connecting this idea with the assertion that man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), Louth argues that mankind is central in constructing an intellectual grasp of the cosmos. As man is a reasonable being (unlike for example a dog or an ant), and the universe was created out of logoi, man is the product of reason in the universe, and as such the only being within it (except God of course) who is capable of engaging reasonably with it.
This is expanded in a discussion on sophiology - a distinctly Orthodox theology developed in the nineteenth century in Russia. He summarized it as follows:
The fundamental intuition of sophiology is relatively easy to enunciate. It is that the gulf between the uncreated God and creation, brought into being out of nothing, does not put creation in opposition to God; rather, Wisdom constitutes a kind of metaxu, ‘between’: between God and man/creation, for Wisdom is that through which God created the universe, and it is equally through wisdom that the human quest for God finds fulfilment. Wisdom, one might say, is the face that God turns towards his creation, and the face that creation, in human kind, turns towards God. Creation is not abandoned by God, it is not godless, for apart from God it would not be at all; it is not deprived of grace, for it owes its existence to grace. Rather, creation is graced, it is holy; in creation God may be encountered.
The final part of Chapter Three is a discussion on angels and demons. Louth presents angels and demons as being able to meaningfully interact with mankind:
As we come into the presence of God, pre-eminently in worship, we are made aware of the presence of the angelic hosts that stand before God. It is as if the angels are the sparks that fly off as God and his Creation encounter each other.
Louth describes how Orthodox tradition ascribes each child a guardian angel at their baptism. Louth presents the angels and demons as being creatures, who like man possess logos, but who are not a full part of our world. He describes them as 'intermediary beings'. He doesn't come down decisively with any judgements about their nature. Louth concludes the third chapter by acknowledging how difficult a concept this might be:
Belief in angels and demons is not something that fits very well with the ‘modern mind’, but its place in traditional Orthodox thinking is not superficial. At the very least, openness to the reality of such beings might remind us that, in Hamlet’s words, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, … Than are dreamt of in your philosophy’.
Chapter Four - This chapter focuses on Christology. I suppose in the for the first half of the chapter the theology is quite familiar to most Westerners. The Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and most Protestant churches are broadly in agreement on Christology. Divergence from these views seems to belong primarily to the Nestorian and Oriental Orthodox churches.
Louth goes on to cover a period of history I find very interesting, namely the Nestorian and later Chalcedeon schisms. These were when the Nestorian and Oriental Orthodox churches respectively seperated from the main church, the latter taking with it the Patriarchal seat of Alexandria. Although they are quite complex, Louth attempts to present the fundamental disagreements that led to these schisms. As I understand it, the Nestorian schism pertained to a rejection from Nestorius of the idea that Christ is of a single united nature (hypostasis). Nestorius (at the time Patriarch of Constantinople) posited that Christ had two natures - one human and one divine, and they were not as one, they simply existed both at once within Christ. These ideas were controversial, and at the Council of Ephesus in 431AD, his teachings were condemned and he was removed from his position. However, the Church of the East (which was primarily based in Persia) continued to accept his ideas, and his views were accepted by what is now commonly referred to as the Nestorian Church.
The Council of Chalcedon in 451 led to a larger schism. Some parties at Chalcedon argued against some of the details of the interpretation of the single hypostatis of Christ which was agreeed upon in 431AD. Ultimately, the Council of Chalcedon affirmed the following:
... one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being [hypostasis]
This statement was not accepted by the denomination now known as the Oriental Orthodox Church, and it was their rejection of this in 451 that caused them to split from the united church. As I understand it, the concept which was caused the problem was the Oriental Orthodox belief that although Christ's human and divine natures were at unity, they did not mix. On the other hand, the united church emphasized that Christ was of only a single nature which was at once divine and human.
Chapter Five - This chapter includes discussion on The Fall. Most of the thinking here was quite familiar to me. Although I was surprised by Louth's Orthodox rejection of the doctrine of original sin.
In the West, with Augustine and his followers, there develops a notion of original sin, peccatum originale: a sin that has its origin in Adam and infects, like an inherited disease, all humanity. This idea, in this very specific sense, never developed in the East, mostly, I suppose, because it seemed that the notion of ancestral sin explained well enough the way in which the effects of sin are more than merely personal. It also seems to me that the notion of ancestral sin tends to see the story of Adam and Eve as typical, rather than needing it to be strictly historical, though, as I have said, for the Fathers this distinction was not drawn very sharply. It might, however, affect how we today interpret Genesis.
He later elaborates on this, drawing a distinction between the Western doctrine of original sin as sin for which we are personally and individually responsible for by virtue of our being a part of the human race, and Eastern doctrine of ancestral sin which suggests that the sin is inherited, but that as humans in the current age we bear no responsibility for it - we are merely affected by it.
Louth also presents humans as being creatures of two natures: one which reaches towards God and one which is a servant to the animalistic desires which prevent death. He quotes Gregory of Nyasa:
It seems to me that the human bears two contradictory likenesses – shaped in the divine aspect of his mind after the divine beauty, but also bearing, in the passionate impulses that arise in him, a likeness to the bestial nature. Frequently his reason is reduced to bestiality, and obscures the better element by the worse through its inclination and disposition towards the animal. For whenever anyone drags down the activity of thought to these, and forces reason to become the servant of the passions, there occurs a sort of distortion of the good character towards the irrational image, his whole nature being refashioned in accordance with this, as reason cultivates the new shoots of the passions, and little by little causes them to grow into a multitude; for once [reason] makes common cause with passion, it produces a thick and diverse crop of evils.
Chapter Six - The opening of this chapter affirms the idea of Genesis that man is created in the image of God, and positions it as a key piece of Orthodox Theology. This is then connected with the trinitarian idea that God the Father and God the Son are one being. From this we could reasonably summize that mankind was made in the image of Jesus Christ. In essence, that Jesus Christ was the original being with a human-like image - and that humanity was made with Jesus Christ as a guiding image.
... it is only in the light of Christ that we can grasp what is truly meant by being human. And the Fall only reinforces this. What we know from our experience of being human is what it is to be fallen humanity, but to be in the image is, at the very least, to bear some trace of true humanity, unfallen humanity, and it is unfallen humanity that we see in Christ. For the Word of God, in becoming man, became what we were meant to be. To be human is to have a nature with capacities, faculties, that are never properly realized in our fallen state; we have a glimpse of these faculties in Christ."
An abridged quotation from an essay by Friar Sergei Bulgakov:
In their content miracles are works of love and mercy; in their significance they are manifestations of human power in the world, human power that is reinforced and illuminated by God’s power … [...] The proof of this is that all of Christ’s miracles, in their content, could have been worked by divinely inspired saintly men, strengthened by God’s grace; and consequently these miracles belong to the category of human power, to the category of man’s lordship over the world, given by God to man at his creation.
Chapter Seven - This chapter concerns sacraments and icons. Of particular interest to me was the discussion on the translation of the word 'sacrament' - which in Latin is 'sacramentum'. However, in Greek, the word is 'mysterion' which means, according to Louth, more or less what it sounds like. The word 'mysterion' only appears once in the Gospels, although it's elaborated on a great deal by Paul. This is quite significant, because in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, this sense of mystery is emphasized. By translating the word to 'sacrament', the basic meaning is maintained, but the connotations of unknowablility are largely lost. The concept of 'sacrament' is later defined in a quotation from David Jones, a poet:
A man can not only smell roses (some beasts may do that, for lavender is said to be appreciated in the Lion House) but he can and does and ought to pluck roses and he can predicate of roses such and such. He can make a signum of roses. He can make attar of roses. He can garland them and make anathemata of them. Which is, presumably, the kind of thing he is meant to do. Anyway, there’s no one else can do it. Angels can’t nor can the beasts. No wonder then that Theology regards the body as a unique good. Without body: without sacrament. Angels only: no sacrament. Beasts only: no sacrament. Man: sacrament at every turn and all levels of the ‘profane’ and ‘sacred’, in the trivial and in the profound, no escape from sacrament.
Louth goes on to describe how the Eucharist is not merely a ceremony, but a situation in which Christ is really present. The bread the wine are truly the body and the blood of Christ - by virtue of their being transformed through the ritual.
It seems to me to be dangerous to think of the ‘merely symbolic’, for the use of symbols alters the way we look at things, the way we relate to people – it does effect a change, which can be very profound. Nonetheless, the language of change is very important in Orthodox understanding of the sacraments. At the time of the iconoclast controversy in the eighth and ninth centuries, the question of the eucharistic change was clarified by the Orthodox affirming that the Eucharist cannot be regarded, as the Iconoclasts did, as simply an icon, or type, of Christ: in the Eucharist the bread and wine are changed into Christ himself, for Christ is really present in the Eucharist – really and permanently present, as the Liturgy of the presanctified gifts makes clear. There is a real change in the water blessed for baptism and the oil blessed for healing – they accomplish something that would not be achieved by ordinary water and ordinary oil, though they remain visibly the same as ordinary water and oil. And in the case of the Eucharist, the bread and wine offered and consecrated are changed into the holy body and precious blood of Christ.
Chapter Eight - This chapter mostly concerns the Church year, and other more practical matters. The focus is a little different in this chapter and a little outside of my main area of interest.
Chapter Nine - This final chapter concerns eschatology. This quote from the introduction sets the stage:
Despite the fact that, in the doctrine of ‘the last things’, ta eschata, the whole of Christian doctrine – Creation, Incarnation, redemption and deification – finds its fulfilment, there is little explicitly defined in the formularies of the Orthodox Church, hardly anything more than these two phrases of the Nicene Creed.
Of particular interest is the explanation as to why the Eastern Orthodox always face towards the east when praying. The following is a quote from John Damascene:
... also, when the Lord was crucified, he looked towards the West, and so we worship gazing towards him. And when he was taken up, he ascended towards the East and thus the apostles worshipped him and thus he shall come in the same way as they had seen him going into heaven … And so, while we are awaiting him, we worship towards the East.
Owing to the somewhat nebulous nature of, and discussion about, the afterlife in the Orthodox Church, Louth doesn't come down on many things with certainty in this chapter. Of course, the notion of purgatory in the same sense as the Catholic Church is rejected - although the idea of an intermediary state after death is not.
I took a few notes as I was reading. I've included what I hope is the most interesting of them below.
Chapters One and Two - The first two chapters venture little outside of that which is common to the majority of Christian denominations.
The main takeaway from the first two chapters has been the centrality of mysteries in Orthodox worship. At the core of Orthodox tradition is a sense that God is unknowable, and that it is only through meditating on that unknowableness that closeness to Christ can be obtained. Louth expands on this concept of mystery during a brief discussion on the writings of John Damascene:
... John explores what we can make of the holy Trinity. [...] he starts by emphasizing that this is all beyond our comprehension, all we can hope for is to avoid misunderstanding that will lead us away from God rather than open our hearts to him.
The presentation of the Trinity is basically in line with most major modern churches (this doctrine was established prior to any of the major schisms:
The persons of the Trinity are not separate from each other, as human persons are, rather they interpenetrate one another. Without losing their distinctness as persons, their reality coincides or coinheres.
What is more likely to be different, is the centrality of the meditation on the unknowableness of God and particularly on his Trinitarian nature. This is presented as an extension of an apophatic approach to theology (meaning that God can only be meaningfully described in terms of what he is not, rather than what he is - as his complete nature is unknowable). Louch concludes Chapter Two with a quote from Vladimir Lossky's The Mystic Theology of the Eastern Church:
We have had again and again, in the course of our study of the mystical theology of the Eastern Church, to refer to the apophatic attitude which is characteristic of its religious thought. As we have seen, the negations which draw attention to the divine incomprehensibility are not prohibitions upon knowledge: apophaticism, so far from being a limitation, enables us to transcend all concepts, every sphere of philosophical speculation. It is a tendency towards an ever-greater plenitude, in which knowledge is transformed into ignorance, the theology of concepts into contemplation, dogmas into experience of ineffable mysteries. It is, moreover, an existential theology involving man’s entire being, which sets him upon the way of union, which obliges him to be changed, to transform his nature that he may attain to the true gnosis which is the contemplation of the Holy Trinity. Now, this ‘change of heart’, this metanoia, means repentance. The apophatic way of Eastern theology is the repentance of the human person before the face of the living God.
Chapter Three - This chapter focuses on the creation story in Genesis. It begins with an analysis as to whether God could be said to have created the world ex nihilo, or whether he simply formed the world out of preexisting material. The story in Genesis itself seems inexplicit. Louth relies on 2 Maccabees to argue for ex nihilo - which is somewhat interesting, as the books of the Maccabees are not considered canonical by mainstream protestant denominations.
Louth goes on to discuss the mysterious antinomy of creation and the created. He attempts to resolve how beings can be at once created by God (and therefore seperate from him) as well as at one with God at the same time. He shows the an early account of the idea of delineation between the physical and spiritual by quoting from Plato's Phaedo:
On the one hand we have that which is divine, immortal, indestructible, of a single form, accessible to thought, ever constant and abiding true to itself; and the soul is very like it: on the other hand we have that which is human, mortal, destructible, of many forms, inaccessible to thought, never constant nor abiding true to itself; and the body is very like that.
However, in Christianity, this delineation becomes less clear, as the God of Christianity is by definition accessible (through the Holy Spirit). This returns again to the concept of mystery, as outlined by Gregory of Nyasa:
God. This leads, first of all and notably, in St Gregory of Nyssa, to the notion that, as the soul draws nearer and nearer to God, it doesn’t find itself on ‘home territory’, so to speak; rather, in drawing closer and closer to a God who is utterly different from it, it realizes more and more poignantly that God is utterly unknowable.
Through this, the Orthodox approach to this antinomy could be said to be a gulf of understanding between the distant God and the imminent one, rather than a clear delineation. Because the distant God is fundamentally unknowable, as outlined by Gregory of Nyasa - it's not so much that the spiritual realm is distant, rather that we cannot grasp it.
Next, Louth addresses the idea of the Logoi of creation - the idea that there is reason, meaning, principle, etc. at the core of creation. The primary source for this is the famous passage from John 1:3:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
What we must remember is that the word 'Word' was not simply 'Word' in the original Greek, it was 'Logos', which can take many definitions, for example: reason, meaning, principle, etc. Connecting this idea with the assertion that man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), Louth argues that mankind is central in constructing an intellectual grasp of the cosmos. As man is a reasonable being (unlike for example a dog or an ant), and the universe was created out of logoi, man is the product of reason in the universe, and as such the only being within it (except God of course) who is capable of engaging reasonably with it.
This is expanded in a discussion on sophiology - a distinctly Orthodox theology developed in the nineteenth century in Russia. He summarized it as follows:
The fundamental intuition of sophiology is relatively easy to enunciate. It is that the gulf between the uncreated God and creation, brought into being out of nothing, does not put creation in opposition to God; rather, Wisdom constitutes a kind of metaxu, ‘between’: between God and man/creation, for Wisdom is that through which God created the universe, and it is equally through wisdom that the human quest for God finds fulfilment. Wisdom, one might say, is the face that God turns towards his creation, and the face that creation, in human kind, turns towards God. Creation is not abandoned by God, it is not godless, for apart from God it would not be at all; it is not deprived of grace, for it owes its existence to grace. Rather, creation is graced, it is holy; in creation God may be encountered.
The final part of Chapter Three is a discussion on angels and demons. Louth presents angels and demons as being able to meaningfully interact with mankind:
As we come into the presence of God, pre-eminently in worship, we are made aware of the presence of the angelic hosts that stand before God. It is as if the angels are the sparks that fly off as God and his Creation encounter each other.
Louth describes how Orthodox tradition ascribes each child a guardian angel at their baptism. Louth presents the angels and demons as being creatures, who like man possess logos, but who are not a full part of our world. He describes them as 'intermediary beings'. He doesn't come down decisively with any judgements about their nature. Louth concludes the third chapter by acknowledging how difficult a concept this might be:
Belief in angels and demons is not something that fits very well with the ‘modern mind’, but its place in traditional Orthodox thinking is not superficial. At the very least, openness to the reality of such beings might remind us that, in Hamlet’s words, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, … Than are dreamt of in your philosophy’.
Chapter Four - This chapter focuses on Christology. I suppose in the for the first half of the chapter the theology is quite familiar to most Westerners. The Eastern Orthodox, Catholic and most Protestant churches are broadly in agreement on Christology. Divergence from these views seems to belong primarily to the Nestorian and Oriental Orthodox churches.
Louth goes on to cover a period of history I find very interesting, namely the Nestorian and later Chalcedeon schisms. These were when the Nestorian and Oriental Orthodox churches respectively seperated from the main church, the latter taking with it the Patriarchal seat of Alexandria. Although they are quite complex, Louth attempts to present the fundamental disagreements that led to these schisms. As I understand it, the Nestorian schism pertained to a rejection from Nestorius of the idea that Christ is of a single united nature (hypostasis). Nestorius (at the time Patriarch of Constantinople) posited that Christ had two natures - one human and one divine, and they were not as one, they simply existed both at once within Christ. These ideas were controversial, and at the Council of Ephesus in 431AD, his teachings were condemned and he was removed from his position. However, the Church of the East (which was primarily based in Persia) continued to accept his ideas, and his views were accepted by what is now commonly referred to as the Nestorian Church.
The Council of Chalcedon in 451 led to a larger schism. Some parties at Chalcedon argued against some of the details of the interpretation of the single hypostatis of Christ which was agreeed upon in 431AD. Ultimately, the Council of Chalcedon affirmed the following:
... one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being [hypostasis]
This statement was not accepted by the denomination now known as the Oriental Orthodox Church, and it was their rejection of this in 451 that caused them to split from the united church. As I understand it, the concept which was caused the problem was the Oriental Orthodox belief that although Christ's human and divine natures were at unity, they did not mix. On the other hand, the united church emphasized that Christ was of only a single nature which was at once divine and human.
Chapter Five - This chapter includes discussion on The Fall. Most of the thinking here was quite familiar to me. Although I was surprised by Louth's Orthodox rejection of the doctrine of original sin.
In the West, with Augustine and his followers, there develops a notion of original sin, peccatum originale: a sin that has its origin in Adam and infects, like an inherited disease, all humanity. This idea, in this very specific sense, never developed in the East, mostly, I suppose, because it seemed that the notion of ancestral sin explained well enough the way in which the effects of sin are more than merely personal. It also seems to me that the notion of ancestral sin tends to see the story of Adam and Eve as typical, rather than needing it to be strictly historical, though, as I have said, for the Fathers this distinction was not drawn very sharply. It might, however, affect how we today interpret Genesis.
He later elaborates on this, drawing a distinction between the Western doctrine of original sin as sin for which we are personally and individually responsible for by virtue of our being a part of the human race, and Eastern doctrine of ancestral sin which suggests that the sin is inherited, but that as humans in the current age we bear no responsibility for it - we are merely affected by it.
Louth also presents humans as being creatures of two natures: one which reaches towards God and one which is a servant to the animalistic desires which prevent death. He quotes Gregory of Nyasa:
It seems to me that the human bears two contradictory likenesses – shaped in the divine aspect of his mind after the divine beauty, but also bearing, in the passionate impulses that arise in him, a likeness to the bestial nature. Frequently his reason is reduced to bestiality, and obscures the better element by the worse through its inclination and disposition towards the animal. For whenever anyone drags down the activity of thought to these, and forces reason to become the servant of the passions, there occurs a sort of distortion of the good character towards the irrational image, his whole nature being refashioned in accordance with this, as reason cultivates the new shoots of the passions, and little by little causes them to grow into a multitude; for once [reason] makes common cause with passion, it produces a thick and diverse crop of evils.
Chapter Six - The opening of this chapter affirms the idea of Genesis that man is created in the image of God, and positions it as a key piece of Orthodox Theology. This is then connected with the trinitarian idea that God the Father and God the Son are one being. From this we could reasonably summize that mankind was made in the image of Jesus Christ. In essence, that Jesus Christ was the original being with a human-like image - and that humanity was made with Jesus Christ as a guiding image.
... it is only in the light of Christ that we can grasp what is truly meant by being human. And the Fall only reinforces this. What we know from our experience of being human is what it is to be fallen humanity, but to be in the image is, at the very least, to bear some trace of true humanity, unfallen humanity, and it is unfallen humanity that we see in Christ. For the Word of God, in becoming man, became what we were meant to be. To be human is to have a nature with capacities, faculties, that are never properly realized in our fallen state; we have a glimpse of these faculties in Christ."
An abridged quotation from an essay by Friar Sergei Bulgakov:
In their content miracles are works of love and mercy; in their significance they are manifestations of human power in the world, human power that is reinforced and illuminated by God’s power … [...] The proof of this is that all of Christ’s miracles, in their content, could have been worked by divinely inspired saintly men, strengthened by God’s grace; and consequently these miracles belong to the category of human power, to the category of man’s lordship over the world, given by God to man at his creation.
Chapter Seven - This chapter concerns sacraments and icons. Of particular interest to me was the discussion on the translation of the word 'sacrament' - which in Latin is 'sacramentum'. However, in Greek, the word is 'mysterion' which means, according to Louth, more or less what it sounds like. The word 'mysterion' only appears once in the Gospels, although it's elaborated on a great deal by Paul. This is quite significant, because in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, this sense of mystery is emphasized. By translating the word to 'sacrament', the basic meaning is maintained, but the connotations of unknowablility are largely lost. The concept of 'sacrament' is later defined in a quotation from David Jones, a poet:
A man can not only smell roses (some beasts may do that, for lavender is said to be appreciated in the Lion House) but he can and does and ought to pluck roses and he can predicate of roses such and such. He can make a signum of roses. He can make attar of roses. He can garland them and make anathemata of them. Which is, presumably, the kind of thing he is meant to do. Anyway, there’s no one else can do it. Angels can’t nor can the beasts. No wonder then that Theology regards the body as a unique good. Without body: without sacrament. Angels only: no sacrament. Beasts only: no sacrament. Man: sacrament at every turn and all levels of the ‘profane’ and ‘sacred’, in the trivial and in the profound, no escape from sacrament.
Louth goes on to describe how the Eucharist is not merely a ceremony, but a situation in which Christ is really present. The bread the wine are truly the body and the blood of Christ - by virtue of their being transformed through the ritual.
It seems to me to be dangerous to think of the ‘merely symbolic’, for the use of symbols alters the way we look at things, the way we relate to people – it does effect a change, which can be very profound. Nonetheless, the language of change is very important in Orthodox understanding of the sacraments. At the time of the iconoclast controversy in the eighth and ninth centuries, the question of the eucharistic change was clarified by the Orthodox affirming that the Eucharist cannot be regarded, as the Iconoclasts did, as simply an icon, or type, of Christ: in the Eucharist the bread and wine are changed into Christ himself, for Christ is really present in the Eucharist – really and permanently present, as the Liturgy of the presanctified gifts makes clear. There is a real change in the water blessed for baptism and the oil blessed for healing – they accomplish something that would not be achieved by ordinary water and ordinary oil, though they remain visibly the same as ordinary water and oil. And in the case of the Eucharist, the bread and wine offered and consecrated are changed into the holy body and precious blood of Christ.
Chapter Eight - This chapter mostly concerns the Church year, and other more practical matters. The focus is a little different in this chapter and a little outside of my main area of interest.
Chapter Nine - This final chapter concerns eschatology. This quote from the introduction sets the stage:
Despite the fact that, in the doctrine of ‘the last things’, ta eschata, the whole of Christian doctrine – Creation, Incarnation, redemption and deification – finds its fulfilment, there is little explicitly defined in the formularies of the Orthodox Church, hardly anything more than these two phrases of the Nicene Creed.
Of particular interest is the explanation as to why the Eastern Orthodox always face towards the east when praying. The following is a quote from John Damascene:
... also, when the Lord was crucified, he looked towards the West, and so we worship gazing towards him. And when he was taken up, he ascended towards the East and thus the apostles worshipped him and thus he shall come in the same way as they had seen him going into heaven … And so, while we are awaiting him, we worship towards the East.
Owing to the somewhat nebulous nature of, and discussion about, the afterlife in the Orthodox Church, Louth doesn't come down on many things with certainty in this chapter. Of course, the notion of purgatory in the same sense as the Catholic Church is rejected - although the idea of an intermediary state after death is not.
January 16, 2018
This is one of many introductory books to Eastern Orthodoxy written for a non-academic audience by an academic. Louth demonstrates a certain awareness of various trends within theology and scholarship, but these arguments and debates are not his main focus. This is not defence for the Eastern Orthodox way of being Christian, but an invitation to explore the tradition with him.
Louth's starting point is prayer. Or, rather, the true mysterion of God. Confronted with this incomprehensible reality, we cannot but enter the task of theology through prayer. Rather than structuring the book around, say, the articles of the Creed or a systematic approach as in western theology or along the historical road of Eastern Orthodoxy (citing the title of a book by Schmemann), it always in and through the experience of God in the Church that this book moves. His most cited texts are liturgical, followed by St Maximos the Confessor and St John of Damascus (on whom he has written a book and some of whose works he has translated).
Of course, Louth engages with other texts and writers from the Didache to Bulgakov. Louth is comfortably aware of his own Orthodox world beyond the 20th-century patristic revival, which is refreshing. 19th-century Russian theology, such as Sophiology, is worthy of awareness.
Anyway, the book is a very good introduction; I list the chapter title at the end of this review. His approach to Christ and Christology I appreciate, as someone who studies the history of Christology from an academic perspective but who is also a Christian. Chapters that I hope challenge many modern(ist) Christians are those about creation and about matter in the divine economy. These resonated with some of my other recent reading, such as Malcolm Guite, Faith, Hope and Poetry about how the created order images forth God, about how we can encounter Him in sign and symbol.
It is worth noting, finally, that although the Most Holy Theotokos and the saints and icons are important in Eastern Orthodoxy, particularly in the daily round of liturgy, front and centre in this book is the Most Holy Trinity, the fact of the Incarnation, the Person and action of Jesus Christ. These are the heart of Orthodoxy, and if we fail to grasp the particular manner of engagement with God in Christ that the Orthodox present but somehow look only to icons, saints, and incense, we'll miss what the icons, saints, and incense are really about.
Thinking and doing, being and praying: where do we start?
Who is God? The doctrine of the Holy Trinity
The doctrine of creation
Who is Christ?
Sin, death, and repentance
Being human -- being in the image of God
Sacraments and icons: the place of matter in the divine economy
Time and the liturgy
Where are we going? The last things and eternal life
It concludes with a guide to further reading
Louth's starting point is prayer. Or, rather, the true mysterion of God. Confronted with this incomprehensible reality, we cannot but enter the task of theology through prayer. Rather than structuring the book around, say, the articles of the Creed or a systematic approach as in western theology or along the historical road of Eastern Orthodoxy (citing the title of a book by Schmemann), it always in and through the experience of God in the Church that this book moves. His most cited texts are liturgical, followed by St Maximos the Confessor and St John of Damascus (on whom he has written a book and some of whose works he has translated).
Of course, Louth engages with other texts and writers from the Didache to Bulgakov. Louth is comfortably aware of his own Orthodox world beyond the 20th-century patristic revival, which is refreshing. 19th-century Russian theology, such as Sophiology, is worthy of awareness.
Anyway, the book is a very good introduction; I list the chapter title at the end of this review. His approach to Christ and Christology I appreciate, as someone who studies the history of Christology from an academic perspective but who is also a Christian. Chapters that I hope challenge many modern(ist) Christians are those about creation and about matter in the divine economy. These resonated with some of my other recent reading, such as Malcolm Guite, Faith, Hope and Poetry about how the created order images forth God, about how we can encounter Him in sign and symbol.
It is worth noting, finally, that although the Most Holy Theotokos and the saints and icons are important in Eastern Orthodoxy, particularly in the daily round of liturgy, front and centre in this book is the Most Holy Trinity, the fact of the Incarnation, the Person and action of Jesus Christ. These are the heart of Orthodoxy, and if we fail to grasp the particular manner of engagement with God in Christ that the Orthodox present but somehow look only to icons, saints, and incense, we'll miss what the icons, saints, and incense are really about.
Thinking and doing, being and praying: where do we start?
Who is God? The doctrine of the Holy Trinity
The doctrine of creation
Who is Christ?
Sin, death, and repentance
Being human -- being in the image of God
Sacraments and icons: the place of matter in the divine economy
Time and the liturgy
Where are we going? The last things and eternal life
It concludes with a guide to further reading
January 18, 2022
The author might as well be called Andrew Couth because this book is a very urbane introduction to Orthodoxy. In lieu of a bland survey of church history, teaching, and practices, Fr. Louth gives a systematic presentation of Orthodox theology that is praiseworthy for three reasons:
First, as you would expect of a professor emeritus of Patristic and Byzantine studies, he knows the Orthodox tradition quite well. He effortlessly draws on Church Fathers such as Gregory of Nyssa, Maximos the Confessor, and Isaac of Nineveh but also on modern theologians such as Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergei Bulgakov, Dumitru Stăniloae, and Christos Yannaras.
Second, he writes in a direct, personal way, attempting to treat dogmatic topics in light of the reader's presumed participation in the Church's life of prayer, fasting, Scripture reading, Eucharist, and acts of mercy. For example, in his chapter on the Holy Trinity, he begins by noting that "God is the One to whom we pray" (17). He conducts his later, technical discussion of ousia, hypostasis, and perichoresis with reference to this reality.
Third, he writes in a winsome style, avoiding unnecessary polemics against other Christian traditions, other religions, and all things "modern." He approvingly quotes Augustine; makes very temperate remarks about Catholicism; and favorably discusses Sophiology, evolution, modern biblical studies, and universal salvation. However, he does not offer a thin, demythologized gruel. He clearly affirms the reality of angels and demons, acknowledges the sexually differentiated character of humanity as fundamental, and entertains various Orthodox speculations about the afterlife.
I will happily recommend this book to others. Fr. Louth exemplifies a way of doing theology where one prayerfully attends to God, participates in the Church, and looks for signs of the Spirit's presence in the wider world.
First, as you would expect of a professor emeritus of Patristic and Byzantine studies, he knows the Orthodox tradition quite well. He effortlessly draws on Church Fathers such as Gregory of Nyssa, Maximos the Confessor, and Isaac of Nineveh but also on modern theologians such as Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergei Bulgakov, Dumitru Stăniloae, and Christos Yannaras.
Second, he writes in a direct, personal way, attempting to treat dogmatic topics in light of the reader's presumed participation in the Church's life of prayer, fasting, Scripture reading, Eucharist, and acts of mercy. For example, in his chapter on the Holy Trinity, he begins by noting that "God is the One to whom we pray" (17). He conducts his later, technical discussion of ousia, hypostasis, and perichoresis with reference to this reality.
Third, he writes in a winsome style, avoiding unnecessary polemics against other Christian traditions, other religions, and all things "modern." He approvingly quotes Augustine; makes very temperate remarks about Catholicism; and favorably discusses Sophiology, evolution, modern biblical studies, and universal salvation. However, he does not offer a thin, demythologized gruel. He clearly affirms the reality of angels and demons, acknowledges the sexually differentiated character of humanity as fundamental, and entertains various Orthodox speculations about the afterlife.
I will happily recommend this book to others. Fr. Louth exemplifies a way of doing theology where one prayerfully attends to God, participates in the Church, and looks for signs of the Spirit's presence in the wider world.
November 13, 2019
I read this, after having converted to Orthodoxy around two years ago, and having been a baptized member of ROCOR for about half a year. I had read several theological works on Orthodoxy already, as well as listened to quite a few podcasts and online lectures, as well as interacting with Jay Dyer and his excellent work on apologetics.
So most of this was nothing new. But I had purchased the book some time back, and had to read it to get my money's worth.
Most of what is contained herein was perfectly fine. Most.
There are however several objections I have to raise which raises Red flags for me, not for Orthodoxy, but for the author and how his presence in academia may have seen him succumb to Foundation money and globalist interests keen on remolding the Church for their own political ends.
First off, he seems to accept Divine Evolution.
The problem with the notion of God ordained evolution is that it presupposes the existence of death as a natural force or element. Well, it is not. Death is a product of the Fall, not of Creation. Therefore one has to see the theory of evolution as nothing less than heretical. I am not entirely sure if the Church places that as a matter of dogma, or not, however.
Secondly the author seemed to play softball with certain theological strains that should have been no brainers, and should be robustly defended as Orthodoxy being correct absolutely. I refer to certain things such as Purgatory, the existence of demons and their machinations. This bothered me greatly.
Lastly the author seemed to conclude his work with an acceptance, at least in part, of the heretical notion of universalism. He suggested that the idea that all will.be saved, as a manifestation of God's loving nature, was a possibility. While we should pray that all will.be saved, Christ Himself said that all will not.
Only He is the path to the Father.
So most of this was nothing new. But I had purchased the book some time back, and had to read it to get my money's worth.
Most of what is contained herein was perfectly fine. Most.
There are however several objections I have to raise which raises Red flags for me, not for Orthodoxy, but for the author and how his presence in academia may have seen him succumb to Foundation money and globalist interests keen on remolding the Church for their own political ends.
First off, he seems to accept Divine Evolution.
The problem with the notion of God ordained evolution is that it presupposes the existence of death as a natural force or element. Well, it is not. Death is a product of the Fall, not of Creation. Therefore one has to see the theory of evolution as nothing less than heretical. I am not entirely sure if the Church places that as a matter of dogma, or not, however.
Secondly the author seemed to play softball with certain theological strains that should have been no brainers, and should be robustly defended as Orthodoxy being correct absolutely. I refer to certain things such as Purgatory, the existence of demons and their machinations. This bothered me greatly.
Lastly the author seemed to conclude his work with an acceptance, at least in part, of the heretical notion of universalism. He suggested that the idea that all will.be saved, as a manifestation of God's loving nature, was a possibility. While we should pray that all will.be saved, Christ Himself said that all will not.
Only He is the path to the Father.
Currently reading
January 22, 2019A commendable attempt to give a concise overview of Orthodox Theology but it is ultimately, regrettably comparable to Staniloae's The Experience of God in its lack of clarity; both are at times muddled by inarticulated half-baked suggestions.
Even though this one is much shorter and presented as more of an Introductory text, I think you still need to back up your points more. There's a lack of attention to detail therein, which annoys me because it will confuse people, especially those entirely new to Orthodoxy.
The work of Met Kallistos is much more rigorous and he develops his thought more perspiciously so I'd recommend The Orthodox Church or Orthodox Way volumes instead of this book to serve as introduction.
Some chapters are rather good and the author manages to make some key doctrines intelligible within the rather compact space, sometimes without undue dilution so it still has some, limited utiliy.
Even though this one is much shorter and presented as more of an Introductory text, I think you still need to back up your points more. There's a lack of attention to detail therein, which annoys me because it will confuse people, especially those entirely new to Orthodoxy.
The work of Met Kallistos is much more rigorous and he develops his thought more perspiciously so I'd recommend The Orthodox Church or Orthodox Way volumes instead of this book to serve as introduction.
Some chapters are rather good and the author manages to make some key doctrines intelligible within the rather compact space, sometimes without undue dilution so it still has some, limited utiliy.
August 20, 2014
Author: Andrew Louth
Publisher: IVP Academic
Reading Level: Moderate to High
There is possibly no tradition in Christianity that requires an introduction more stringently than Eastern Orthodoxy. With the heart of the tradition residing in Turkey, a history of painful separation from the western church and a complete lack of Augustinian thought in their theology, Eastern Orthodoxy remains true to their roots while the west seemingly forgets or ignores them. But as this tradition has spread further and deeper into the west and won converts, the intrigue and misunderstandings of western believers have revealed themselves. In his book Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology which is based on previous lectures, Andrew Louth attempts to unravel some of the mystery.
The Communication
Eastern Orthodoxy is truly set apart from Western Christianity by the fact that it “sees its faith as expressed, and tested, in prayer and worship” (pg. xix). Or put another way, one must worship in an Orthodox fashion to fully understand their theology. Far from being a reliance on experience, this speaks to the great importance the Orthodox worship structure plays in their communication of their faith. For Western minds built around systematic theology and clear enunciation of doctrines within a system, this type of organic presentation can be disorienting and seem unrefined. Though the chapters and subsections of Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology are organized to facilitate a systematic approach, there remains an organic expression of the faith that is evidenced by the persistent references to future and past chapters.
Fundamental to this organic expression is Andrew Louth’s strong dependency on quotes from the Divine Liturgy and Orthodox prayers. Western Christians will find the language, wording and definitions of liturgical elements a potential distraction from the crucial and exciting perspectives that are presented. This problem manifests itself overwhelmingly in chapter 8, entitled “Time and Liturgy,” which is in fact one of the most interesting and informative chapters in the entire book. With this in mind, the book stands as a great introduction for those who already have some familiarity with Eastern Orthodoxy. Those who are approaching the subject anew may struggle to enjoy and appreciate this intriguing book despite its valuable content.
The Content
In a general way, Introducing Eastern Orthodoxy moves in the order of the Nicene Creed moving from God, Christ, man and closing with the second coming. Chapters 1-4 discuss God, creation and Christ at length, with many profound insights. Given a completely different starting base, typically a quotation from the church fathers, Louth is able to present Orthodox truths from a variety of perspectives. Occasionally Louth steps on the toes of Evangelical sensibility when stating that the church hears a “living voice in the bishops” (pg. 5) and that the Scriptures were “written and re-written” (pg. 8). But even among these statements it is fascinating to see the dogma of the Trinity and Christ portrayed in the light of church tradition. Despite how Protestants may disagree with these views, they have not led or amounted to a breakout of charismatic apostles, liberal rebels or mass rejection of the church as has been seen in mainline Protestantism. Placing obvious and necessary disagreements aside, there are interesting things to be learned from these perspectives and their reliance on church history and tradition.
Chapter 3, entitled “The doctrine of creation”, stands out in this dense set of opening chapters and even manages to eclipse the outstanding sections on Jesus Christ (chapter 4). Louth’s articulation of the early church fathers’ views on creation ex nihlo, the “absolute difference” between God and creation (pg. 36) and creation as not “intrinsically opposed to Creator” (pg. 39) are outstanding insights for an ever increasing material Christianity.
Chapters 5-9, which cover sin, the fall, anthropology, the sacraments and eschatology, will prove difficult in some ways for Protestant readers. It is within these invaluable chapters that Protestant readers will see repetitive disagreement with the theological traditions of Augustine and the Reformation. Given the intention of Andrew Louth, an introduction to Eastern Orthodoxy, these chapters are gems. They are clearly communicated and overwhelmingly practical in their use of Biblical texts and reliance on the tradition of the early fathers. Far from leaving everything at a doctrinal level, each of these subjects is brought back down into the realities of Eastern Orthodox worship and application. It is at these points in particular that Protestant readers can engage their own paradigms and learn some valuable lessons.
Chapter 9, concerning eschatology, ends the book in a rather abrupt and non-fulfilling manner. Eastern Orthodoxy here, more than in previous chapters, lays down “a boundary, beyond which is heresy” (pg. 27) instead of clear dogmas. But for Protestant readers, these boundaries will seem to be far too wide and fanciful. It is in this chapter that the least persuading reliance on church tradition comes to light. Despite the opportunity to defend some controversial subjects on the basis of Scripture, Andrew Louth chooses to highlight difficult quotes in communicating the importance of universal eschatology over individual eschatology (pg. 145-152), disagreements over purgatory (pg. 154-155) and the possibility of universal salvation (pg. 157-159).
Despite these nuances and difficulties for Protestant readers, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology is in fine form regarding its content and insight. Though more simple, lengthy and Protestant oriented books are available, this book truly communicates the heart of Eastern Orthodoxy in all its paradoxical wonder.
Publisher: IVP Academic
Reading Level: Moderate to High
There is possibly no tradition in Christianity that requires an introduction more stringently than Eastern Orthodoxy. With the heart of the tradition residing in Turkey, a history of painful separation from the western church and a complete lack of Augustinian thought in their theology, Eastern Orthodoxy remains true to their roots while the west seemingly forgets or ignores them. But as this tradition has spread further and deeper into the west and won converts, the intrigue and misunderstandings of western believers have revealed themselves. In his book Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology which is based on previous lectures, Andrew Louth attempts to unravel some of the mystery.
The Communication
Eastern Orthodoxy is truly set apart from Western Christianity by the fact that it “sees its faith as expressed, and tested, in prayer and worship” (pg. xix). Or put another way, one must worship in an Orthodox fashion to fully understand their theology. Far from being a reliance on experience, this speaks to the great importance the Orthodox worship structure plays in their communication of their faith. For Western minds built around systematic theology and clear enunciation of doctrines within a system, this type of organic presentation can be disorienting and seem unrefined. Though the chapters and subsections of Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology are organized to facilitate a systematic approach, there remains an organic expression of the faith that is evidenced by the persistent references to future and past chapters.
Fundamental to this organic expression is Andrew Louth’s strong dependency on quotes from the Divine Liturgy and Orthodox prayers. Western Christians will find the language, wording and definitions of liturgical elements a potential distraction from the crucial and exciting perspectives that are presented. This problem manifests itself overwhelmingly in chapter 8, entitled “Time and Liturgy,” which is in fact one of the most interesting and informative chapters in the entire book. With this in mind, the book stands as a great introduction for those who already have some familiarity with Eastern Orthodoxy. Those who are approaching the subject anew may struggle to enjoy and appreciate this intriguing book despite its valuable content.
The Content
In a general way, Introducing Eastern Orthodoxy moves in the order of the Nicene Creed moving from God, Christ, man and closing with the second coming. Chapters 1-4 discuss God, creation and Christ at length, with many profound insights. Given a completely different starting base, typically a quotation from the church fathers, Louth is able to present Orthodox truths from a variety of perspectives. Occasionally Louth steps on the toes of Evangelical sensibility when stating that the church hears a “living voice in the bishops” (pg. 5) and that the Scriptures were “written and re-written” (pg. 8). But even among these statements it is fascinating to see the dogma of the Trinity and Christ portrayed in the light of church tradition. Despite how Protestants may disagree with these views, they have not led or amounted to a breakout of charismatic apostles, liberal rebels or mass rejection of the church as has been seen in mainline Protestantism. Placing obvious and necessary disagreements aside, there are interesting things to be learned from these perspectives and their reliance on church history and tradition.
Chapter 3, entitled “The doctrine of creation”, stands out in this dense set of opening chapters and even manages to eclipse the outstanding sections on Jesus Christ (chapter 4). Louth’s articulation of the early church fathers’ views on creation ex nihlo, the “absolute difference” between God and creation (pg. 36) and creation as not “intrinsically opposed to Creator” (pg. 39) are outstanding insights for an ever increasing material Christianity.
Chapters 5-9, which cover sin, the fall, anthropology, the sacraments and eschatology, will prove difficult in some ways for Protestant readers. It is within these invaluable chapters that Protestant readers will see repetitive disagreement with the theological traditions of Augustine and the Reformation. Given the intention of Andrew Louth, an introduction to Eastern Orthodoxy, these chapters are gems. They are clearly communicated and overwhelmingly practical in their use of Biblical texts and reliance on the tradition of the early fathers. Far from leaving everything at a doctrinal level, each of these subjects is brought back down into the realities of Eastern Orthodox worship and application. It is at these points in particular that Protestant readers can engage their own paradigms and learn some valuable lessons.
Chapter 9, concerning eschatology, ends the book in a rather abrupt and non-fulfilling manner. Eastern Orthodoxy here, more than in previous chapters, lays down “a boundary, beyond which is heresy” (pg. 27) instead of clear dogmas. But for Protestant readers, these boundaries will seem to be far too wide and fanciful. It is in this chapter that the least persuading reliance on church tradition comes to light. Despite the opportunity to defend some controversial subjects on the basis of Scripture, Andrew Louth chooses to highlight difficult quotes in communicating the importance of universal eschatology over individual eschatology (pg. 145-152), disagreements over purgatory (pg. 154-155) and the possibility of universal salvation (pg. 157-159).
Despite these nuances and difficulties for Protestant readers, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology is in fine form regarding its content and insight. Though more simple, lengthy and Protestant oriented books are available, this book truly communicates the heart of Eastern Orthodoxy in all its paradoxical wonder.
November 21, 2018
Louth does an excellent job of walking through the elements of theology from an Easter Orthodox point of view. The obvious doctrinal subjects are well covered (Creation, Trinity, Christology, Soteriology, Ecclesiology and Eschatology.) He is strong on the experience of faith - the book opens with 'Standing before the mystery of God' and includes chapters on spirituality and the liturgy. Thus particular characteristics of Orthodoxy are given their place alongside 'dogma'. Similarly there are frequent quoted texts of the Liturgy (and the Father) used to explicate his points.
Perhaps this is not the aim of the book but one will not find much in here an account of the belief and practices of the Orthodox believer, or any differentiation between the 'families' within Orthodoxy. Another lacuna is any focused treatment of the ethical implications of faith for a believer.
Perhaps this is not the aim of the book but one will not find much in here an account of the belief and practices of the Orthodox believer, or any differentiation between the 'families' within Orthodoxy. Another lacuna is any focused treatment of the ethical implications of faith for a believer.
February 11, 2024
A great introduction into the theology of Orthodox Christianity. It is full of references to early church fathers, and provides deep context to the traditions and teachings of the church. Even though I am not Orthodox, in reading this book, I have a new found respect for this tradition.
There are a few things that I disagree with fundamentally, but most of them are tertiary issues within the church, such as the veneration of the Virgin and Saints, and also the importance (Presence?) of the Eucharist.
Also, the importance of Holy tradition and the Fathers and their Interpretation of the Scriptures is seen as central, which is very different from Western Denominations. There is a lot of emphasis of the mystical qualities of the Faith, and I really enjoyed that.
Overall a great read!
There are a few things that I disagree with fundamentally, but most of them are tertiary issues within the church, such as the veneration of the Virgin and Saints, and also the importance (Presence?) of the Eucharist.
Also, the importance of Holy tradition and the Fathers and their Interpretation of the Scriptures is seen as central, which is very different from Western Denominations. There is a lot of emphasis of the mystical qualities of the Faith, and I really enjoyed that.
Overall a great read!
December 14, 2020
I know very little about Eastern Orthodoxy, and reading this "introduction" did little to change that reality. The book was hard to read. Arguments felt circular. Sentences were long and hard to follow. The content was not particularly "helpful" in my quest to understand Eastern Orthodoxy. Perhaps the issue is Orthodoxy itself. Maybe I was looking for a "western" take on Orthodoxy. I'd be curious to know how an insider would react to this book, but I'm quite certain an outsider will be frustrated.
June 17, 2024
There more things Protestants have in common with Eastern Orthodox (EO) than we may realize. There are many issues which the West (Roman Catholics and Protestants) might see as issues, but to the EO they are simply following the instructions as per the Lord, according to them.
Some interesting things: While the Reformed tradition see the Bible as the infallible rule of faith, EO treat it as part of the Tradition. This isn't to say that EO don't have a high view of Scripture. They do, but also other pseudepigrapha if it echoes similar teachings.
The Filioque is an additional clause added dogmatically by the West (Latin Church) as a means to combat Arianism. However, it also caused immense friction between West and East. As for the Eastern churches, they would see the Filioque as disrupting the perfection within the Trinity; within the Trinity, any trait must be either unique to one Person or a commonality by all three:
"Fatherhood is unique to the Father, begotten is unique to the Son, procession is unique to the Spirit. Divinity is common for all three."
But again, many EO scholars have noted that it could be a semantic issue similar to the Chalcedonian Christological controversy in 451.
EO also rejects purgatory as a Western invention of the 12th century. The Filioque and purgatory doctrines were given from the West to the East as conditions for reunion + military help against the Turks. The East did not accept it and went on to suffer greatly. So great was the destruction of their identity and churches that they held the 7th Ecumenical Council which included making icon veneration dogma.
Their idea behind icon veneration is not 'idolatry' or worship of the images, but they justify that because of the arrival of the Incarnation (Christ being the image of God), it changes how images could be used. Some have compared it to how people use photos to remember a loved one. Icon veneration is tied to Eastern Orthodox teaching that all of God's creation is to be redeemed and glorified. And because of their high view of creation, they apply that to the church premises and internals. To them, the building is not merely just that; it must reflect, though imperfectly, the majesty/glory of heaven (similar to high church Anglican and Roman Catholics)
In the West, it is eternal damnation. Whereas in the East, it is open for discussion. They don't deny that Scripture seems to affirm the notion of eternal damnation, they simply struggle (like every other Christian does) to reconcile it with God's love.
It might seem as though they teach universalism (like how Origen was and was condemned for it), but it merely is just a consideration and not put forth as an official doctrine of the EO.
One is thing is for sure, is that the Eastern Orthodox does "whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God" in heavy symbolism.
However, the similarities of their chants to Eastern mysticism and the Charismatic movement seems oddly specific - that trance-like state inducement is to be avoided. We don't need to be hypnotized to meditate on God's Word.
Some interesting things: While the Reformed tradition see the Bible as the infallible rule of faith, EO treat it as part of the Tradition. This isn't to say that EO don't have a high view of Scripture. They do, but also other pseudepigrapha if it echoes similar teachings.
The Filioque is an additional clause added dogmatically by the West (Latin Church) as a means to combat Arianism. However, it also caused immense friction between West and East. As for the Eastern churches, they would see the Filioque as disrupting the perfection within the Trinity; within the Trinity, any trait must be either unique to one Person or a commonality by all three:
"Fatherhood is unique to the Father, begotten is unique to the Son, procession is unique to the Spirit. Divinity is common for all three."
But again, many EO scholars have noted that it could be a semantic issue similar to the Chalcedonian Christological controversy in 451.
EO also rejects purgatory as a Western invention of the 12th century. The Filioque and purgatory doctrines were given from the West to the East as conditions for reunion + military help against the Turks. The East did not accept it and went on to suffer greatly. So great was the destruction of their identity and churches that they held the 7th Ecumenical Council which included making icon veneration dogma.
Their idea behind icon veneration is not 'idolatry' or worship of the images, but they justify that because of the arrival of the Incarnation (Christ being the image of God), it changes how images could be used. Some have compared it to how people use photos to remember a loved one. Icon veneration is tied to Eastern Orthodox teaching that all of God's creation is to be redeemed and glorified. And because of their high view of creation, they apply that to the church premises and internals. To them, the building is not merely just that; it must reflect, though imperfectly, the majesty/glory of heaven (similar to high church Anglican and Roman Catholics)
In the West, it is eternal damnation. Whereas in the East, it is open for discussion. They don't deny that Scripture seems to affirm the notion of eternal damnation, they simply struggle (like every other Christian does) to reconcile it with God's love.
It might seem as though they teach universalism (like how Origen was and was condemned for it), but it merely is just a consideration and not put forth as an official doctrine of the EO.
One is thing is for sure, is that the Eastern Orthodox does "whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God" in heavy symbolism.
However, the similarities of their chants to Eastern mysticism and the Charismatic movement seems oddly specific - that trance-like state inducement is to be avoided. We don't need to be hypnotized to meditate on God's Word.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 29, 2019
It is a rather poorly written book. The author confuses essays with introductory texts. This is more of a collection of thoughts organized around several theological themes.
And sadly as an essay the book is not a success. The author frequently dashes into lengthy quotes without sufficient explanations. The little discussion that actually happened often lacked rigor - less than what you'd find in a history book.
And sadly as an essay the book is not a success. The author frequently dashes into lengthy quotes without sufficient explanations. The little discussion that actually happened often lacked rigor - less than what you'd find in a history book.
August 2, 2025
I understand eastern orthodox theology even less now than before I read the book. Maybe my issue is more with the theology than the book, but either way, it's too metaphysical. It's a major red flag for me when the source material (the Bible) is easier to understand than the explanatory matieral (the theology).
October 25, 2019
I’m a Protestant, so I don’t know the full depth and breadth of the Orthodox tradition. This is a helpful introduction. A bit superficial than my tastes, but it made me want to get to know the tradition more.
September 11, 2025
Good introduction to Eastern Orthodoxy. Mr. Louth also provides a good reading list to further understand the tradition. As a Protestant (Baptist), I still find great pleasure in understanding other Christian denominations.
August 8, 2018
Good introduction for an atheist looking to learn about the religion. Heavy on terminology, I suggest you keep Wikipedia open
April 30, 2019
Good introduction
I recommend this book to anyone with a curiosity for Orthodoxy, Greek or generally Eastern. It covered the material in engaging manner.
I recommend this book to anyone with a curiosity for Orthodoxy, Greek or generally Eastern. It covered the material in engaging manner.
February 23, 2021
Decent intro
November 21, 2021
Solid
I was looking for an introduction to Eastern Orthodox Theology. This book served that purpose well. I will return to it often.
I was looking for an introduction to Eastern Orthodox Theology. This book served that purpose well. I will return to it often.
July 15, 2023
My new favorite introduction to Orthodox Christian theology.
September 27, 2024
This is a helpful and readable introduction to Eastern Orthodox theology.
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