Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-16T08:34:11.628Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - Sophia, apophasis, and communion: the Trinity in contemporary Orthodox theology

from Part IV - Contemporary theologians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2011

Aristotle Papanikolaou
Affiliation:
Fordham University, New York
Peter C. Phan
Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
Get access

Summary

In 1453, Orthodox Christianity experienced not only the fall of Constantinople, but the beginning of the hibernation of a once-vibrant intellectual tradition: for nearly 400 years, most of the Orthodox world would suffer under Ottoman oppression. In the nineteenth century, the Orthodox Christian intellectual tradition would awaken from its slumber when Russian thinkers would begin responding to the flood of modern ideas and philosophies being imported from the West as a result of the reforms of Tsar Peter the Great. What is remarkable about this theological awakening is its consistency with the Byzantine intellectual tradition silenced by the Ottomans, most especially on the principle of divine–human communion as the core of Orthodox thought. Contemporary Orthodox theologians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries would share a consensus that divine–human communion constitutes the very heart of Orthodox theology – it is where all theology thinking must begin and end. In addition to this consensus, the doctrine of the Trinity was considered, again in continuity with the Byzantine intellectual tradition, indispensable for conceptualizing the God–world relation in terms of divine–human communion. These points of agreement, however, did not preclude the development of three distinctive and, in part, mutually incompatible trajectories in contemporary Orthodox trinitarian theology. In this chapter, I will offer an analysis of the three most influential: the sophiology of Sergius Bulgakov, the apophaticism of Vladimir Lossky, and the communion ontology of John Zizioulas.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Plekon, Michael, Living Icons: Persons of Faith in the Eastern Church (University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), 29–58Google Scholar
Evtuhov, Catherine, The Cross and the Sickle: Sergei Bulgakov and the Fate of Russian Religious Philosophy: 1890–1920 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997)Google Scholar
de Régnon's, ThéodoreÉtudes de théologie positive sur la Sainte Trinité, i (Paris, 1892), 309Google Scholar
Barnes, Michel René' accusation is in his “De Régnon Reconsidered,” Augustinian Studies, 26:2 (1995), 51–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism and Divine–Human Communion (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 181 n. 101
Ayres, Lewis, “Sempiterne Spiritus Donum: Augustine's Pneumatology and the Metaphysics of Spirit,” in George Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou, eds., Orthodox Readings of Augustine (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; Crestwood, ny: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2008)Google Scholar
Lienhard, Joseph T., “Ousia and Hypostasis: The Cappadocian Settlement and the Theology of ‘One Hypostasis,’” in Stephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall, and Gerald O'Collins, eds., The Trinity: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Trinity (Oxford University Press, 1999), 99–121Google Scholar
Behr, John, The Nicene Faith (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004)Google Scholar
Brown, Alan, “On the Criticism of Being as Communion in Anglophone Orthodox Theology,” in Douglas H. Knight, ed., The Theology of John Zizioulas (Burlington, VI: Ashgate, 2007), 35–78Google Scholar
Behr, John, The Nicene Faith (Crestwood, ny: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004).Google Scholar
Bulgakov, Sergius, On Divine Humanity, trans. Boris Jakin, i: The Lamb of God; ii: The Comforter; iii: The Bride of the Lamb (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008, 2004, 2002).Google Scholar
Lossky, Vladimir, In the Image and Likeness of God, ed. Erickson, John H. and Bird, Thomas E. (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1974).Google Scholar
Lossky, Vladimir, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976; original 1944).Google Scholar
Lossky, Vladimir, Orthodox Theology: An Introduction, trans. Ian and Ihita Kesarcodi-Watson (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1978).Google Scholar
Papanikolaou, Aristotle, Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism and Divine–Human Communion (University of Notre Dame Press, 2006).Google Scholar
Papanikolaou, Aristotle, “Personhood and its Exponents in Twentieth-Century Orthodox Theology,” in Cunningham, Mary B. and Theokritoff, Elizabeth, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Orthodox Christian Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2008), 232–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Staniloae, Dumitru, The Experience of God, trans. and ed. Ioan Ionita and Robert Barringer, 6 vols. (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1994, 2000).Google Scholar
Valliere, Paul, Modern Russian Theology: Bukharev, Soloviev, Bulgakov: Orthodox Theology in a New Key (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 2000).Google Scholar
Zizioulas, John, Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1985).Google Scholar
Zizioulas, John, Communion and Otherness: Further Studies in Personhood and the Church, ed. McPartlan, Paul (London and New York: T. & T. Clark, 2006).Google Scholar
Zizioulas, John, Remembering the Future: An Eschatological Ontology (New York: T. & T Clark, 2008).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×