Apart from its civil importance as the new capital and the preaching of Chrysostom, early Constantinople was known for little either culturally or ecclesiastically. It
The Icon: Sacrament of the Kingdom
To introduce my subject, I would like to paraphrase these words from the prologue of the First Epistle of St John: What we have heard,
St. Theodore the Studite and the Problem of the Paulicians
It is well known to students of the Byzantine Church that St. Theodore the Studite, together with his followers, underwent all manner of cruel treatment
The Evolution of the Byzantine “Divine Liturgy”
How Liturgies Grow: the Evolution of the Byzantine “Divine Liturgy” In this paper I would like to locate the evolution of the Byzantine eucharist within
The Symbolism of the Church
What exactly is the meaning of symbolism? The indirect expression by means of an image of something which no form, visual or verbal, can convey
Iconographic Decoration in the Orthodox Church
One of the most distinctive features of Eastern Orthodoxy is the extensive and systematic use of holy icons in churches. Every Orthodox church has an iconostasis, a
The Therapeutae of Philo and the Monks as Therapeutae according to Pseudo-Dionysius
In his De Vita Contemplativa the Alexandrian Philo makes an extremely remark-able description of an ascetic community with which he was familiar and which was
The Orthodox Church
Some preliminary clarifications “Orthodoxy” means “right belief” or “right opinion” as opposed to heresy, i.e. to the “wrong” or “false belief”. The term “Orthodoxy” combines
Platonic Elements in Pseudo-Dionysius Anti-Manichaean Ontology
There are two things one cannot ignore when facing Pseudo-Dionysius ontology. The first is his Platonic and Neoplatonic awareness, and the second, perhaps even more
The Art of the First Centuries of Christianity and its Symbolism
We have seen that the scholarly theories concerning sacred objects have been based on diverse and changing hypotheses, sometimes even on prejudices. Thus Protestant scholars,