Orthodox Info

A structured reference library on Orthodox Christian theology, organized by topic and self-contained per file. Each collection is mirrored in English and Russian.

Collections

Russian Orthodox Theology (with ROCOR focus)

  • English — covers foundations, sources, dogmatic theology, the Russian Orthodox tradition, ROCOR, liturgical life, spiritual life, canon law, and Orthodox distinctives.
  • Русский — Справочное руководство по богословию РПЦЗ и Русской Православной Церкви.

Fr. Seraphim Rose (1934–1982)

  • English — theological writings of Fr. Seraphim, presented with attention to the patristic sources he cites.
  • Русский — Богословский справочник по трудам о. Серафима (Роуза).

St. Paisios of Mount Athos (1924–1994; canonized 2015)

  • English — teachings drawn from the Spiritual Counsels, letters, and authenticated sayings.
  • Русский — Богословский справочник по учению преп. Паисия Святогорца.

Russian Saints

Early Church Fathers

St. Herman of Alaska (c. 1751/58–1836/37; glorified 1970)

  • English — America’s first saint: the Valaam mission to Kodiak, Spruce Island, and the attested record.
  • Русский — прп. Герман Аляскинский: Валаамская миссия, Еловый остров, засвидетельствованное предание.

St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco (1896–1966; glorified 1994)

  • English — the ROCOR wonderworker bishop: Shanghai, Tubabao, Western Europe, San Francisco.
  • Русский — свт. Иоанн Шанхайский и Сан-Францисский: Шанхай, Тубабао, Западная Европа, Сан-Франциско.

New Testament Saints — Apostles, Evangelists & the First Witnesses

Slavic & Russian Saints — Enlighteners, Princes, Monastic Founders & Elders

Apostolic & Ante-Nicene Fathers

Greek & Byzantine Fathers

Desert & Ascetic Fathers

Women Saints & Equals-to-the-Apostles

Slavic & Missionary Saints

Russian Spiritual Masters & Confessors

Western Pre-Schism Saints

Celtic & Western Pre-Schism Saints — the Gaulish Fathers, the Celtic Mission & the English Church

Modern Greek & Georgian Saints

Great Martyrs & Wonderworkers

Desert & Cenobitic Founders

Theologians & Mystics

The Most Holy Theotokos

  • The Most Holy Theotokos — the Mother of God: the Council of Ephesus and Theotokos vs Christotokos, ever-virginity, the Dormition and the East/West Immaculate-Conception divergence, the feasts, the icons, and the hymnography; with a source-critical flagship distinguishing canonical Scripture from the Protoevangelium of James. Русский

The Royal Martyrs & the New Martyrs of Russia

Serbian & Romanian Theologians

  • St. Nikolai (Velimirović) of Žiča and Ohrid (1881–1956; glorified 2003) — the “Serbian Chrysostom”; Prayers by the Lake and The Prologue from Ohrid; the Dachau text and the antisemitism controversy given both-sides. Русский
  • St. Justin (Popović) of Ćelije (1894–1979; glorified 2010) — the dogmatician of the God-Man (Bogochovek); the Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church and the Lives of the Saints; his student of St Nikolai, with the ecumenism debate given both-sides. Русский
  • Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae (1903–1993; revered but not glorified) — the foremost Romanian Orthodox theologian of the 20th century; the Romanian Philokalia and The Experience of God; confessor imprisoned at Aiud. Русский

The Ecumenical Councils

  • The Seven Ecumenical Councils — Nicaea I (325) through Nicaea II (787): the Arian, Nestorian, Christological, monothelite, and iconoclast controversies and their definitions; conciliarity and reception; the conciliar canons; and the “Eighth Council” (879–880), the Palamite councils, and Crete 2016 given both-sides. Русский

Athonite, Fool-for-Christ & Balkan Saints

  • St. Joseph the Hesychast (c. 1897/98–1959; glorified 2020) — the Athonite elder of noetic prayer whose brotherhood revived the Holy Mountain; the Letters; his disciples across Athos and America. Русский
  • St. Basil the Blessed of Moscow (c. 1468/69–1557; canonized 1588) — the fool-for-Christ of Moscow who gave St Basil’s Cathedral its popular name; a thinly-sourced saint with a Xenia-style source-critical flagship. Русский
  • St. Paisius of Hilendar (1722–1773; canonized 1962) — the Athonite monk whose Slavo-Bulgarian History (1762) launched the Bulgarian National Revival; the national-awakening-vs-ethnophyletism question given both-sides. Русский
  • St. John Jacob of Neamț (the Chozebite) (1913–1960; glorified 1992) — the Romanian hermit-poet of the Judean desert; Mar Saba and St George of Choziba; the incorrupt-relics tradition. Русский

The Byzantine Fool-for-Christ & the Protection

  • St. Andrew the Fool of Constantinople (Andreas Salos) — the Byzantine holy fool whose vision at Blachernae gave rise to the feast of the Protection (Pokrov); the Life‘s dating (Mango vs. Rydén) and Andrew’s historicity given both-sides, with the feast kept independent of the source question. Русский

Antiochian, American & Modern Greek Saints

  • St. Raphael of Brooklyn (1860–1915; glorified 2000) — St Raphael Hawaweeny, the Damascus-born “Good Shepherd of the Lost Sheep in America” and first Orthodox bishop consecrated on American soil; the pre-1917 multiethnic mission and its fragmentation given both-sides. Русский
  • St. Nikephoros the Leper (1890–1964; glorified 2012) — the Cretan monk who bore leprosy with joy in the Chios colony and the Athens antileprosy station, now among the most-invoked contemporary Greek healer-saints. Русский
  • St. Sophia of Kleisoura (1883–1974; glorified 2011) — the Pontic refugee-woman who lived four decades as a hidden ascetic by the hearth of the Panagia Kleisoura monastery; a fool-for-Christ eldress and clairvoyant. Русский
  • St. Iakovos Tsalikis of Evia (1920–1991; glorified 2017) — the humble, clairvoyant abbot who rebuilt the Monastery of St David the Elder; renowned for his Liturgy and his discernment. Русский

The Twelve Great Feasts

  • The Twelve Great Feasts — Pascha the Feast of Feasts and the twelve Great Feasts of the church year, each with its Scripture, icon, hymnography, and dogmatic content; the source questions of the Marian feasts handled with the Theotokos collection, and the Christological feasts read against the Ecumenical Councils. Русский

Martyrs & Modern Witnesses — Georgia, Damascus, Paris

  • St. Ketevan the Martyr, Queen of Kakheti (c. 1560–1624) — the Georgian queen martyred at Shiraz under Shah Abbas I; unusually well attested by both Georgian and European eyewitnesses, with the 2013 Goa relic identification given both-sides. Русский
  • St. Joseph of Damascus (1793–1860; glorified 1993) — the Arab priest-scholar martyred with his flock in the 1860 Damascus massacre; the causes given both-sides, including Abd al-Qādir al-Jazā’irī’s sheltering of Christians. Русский
  • St. Maria of Paris (Mother Maria Skobtsova) (1891–1945; glorified 2004) — the poet-nun of “monasticism in the world” who sheltered Jews in occupied Paris and died at Ravensbrück; her genuinely contested reception given both-sides. Русский
  • St. John the Russian (c. 1690–1730) — the Russian prisoner-of-war whose holiness in Ottoman slavery made him a saint of both the Russian and Greek worlds; his incorrupt relics rest at Nea Prokopi on Evia. Русский

The Holy Mysteries

  • The Holy Mysteries (the Sacraments) — Baptism, Chrismation, the Eucharist, Confession, Ordination, Marriage, and Unction, each with its Scripture, theology, and history; the third thematic pillar with the Councils and the Great Feasts, the “seven” and the East/West divergences given both-sides. Русский

The Startsy & the New Martyrs of Russia

  • The Optina Elders — the lineage of Optina Pustyn elders from St Leonid to St Nektary and the hieromartyrs, the Philokalic revival of startchestvo, and the elders and the Russian intelligentsia (the Zosima question given both-sides). Русский
  • The New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia — the 20th-century Soviet persecution: the martyred hierarchs, Butovo and Solovki, the ROCOR-1981 and Moscow-2000 glorifications, and the Sergianism question, with casualty figures given as scholarly ranges. Русский

The Founders of Georgian Christianity

  • The Thirteen Assyrian Fathers (6th c.) — the Syrian monastic missionaries under St John of Zedazeni (Shio of Mgvime, David of Gareji, and the rest) who founded Georgian monasticism; the later Lives handled source-critically. Русский
  • St. David the Builder (1073–1125) — David IV Aghmashenebeli, Georgia’s warrior-king saint; the victory of Didgori, the founding of Gelati, and the Hymns of Repentance; holy kingship and hard statecraft held both-sides. Русский

The Divine Liturgy & Holy Icons

  • The Divine Liturgy — the Eucharistic liturgy of Sts John Chrysostom and Basil the Great from the proskomedia through the anaphora to communion; the temple and iconostasis; lex orandi lex credendi; the epiclesis and the East/West debate given both-sides. Русский
  • Holy Icons — the theology and practice of the sacred image: the iconoclast controversy and Nicaea II, St John of Damascus and St Theodore the Studite, the canons of iconography, the major types, and the veneration of icons. Русский

The Desert Fathers

  • The Desert Fathers and the Sayings — the 4th–5th-century desert monastic movement and the Apophthegmata Patrum: Nitria and Scetis, the anchoritic and coenobitic ways, the desert mothers, and the teaching (hesychia, penthos, discernment) — with the individual fathers treated in their own collections. Русский

A Georgian Queen & a Patmos Elder

  • St. Tamar the Great, Queen of Georgia (r. 1184–1213) — the sovereign of the Georgian Golden Age, great-granddaughter of David the Builder; Vardzia and Rustaveli; holy queenship and statecraft held both-sides, with her unknown grave as the source-critical limit. Русский
  • St. Amphilochios of Patmos (1889–1970; glorified 2018) — the elder of Patmos, abbot of St John the Theologian and founder of the Annunciation convent; the “religion of love” and a strikingly early ecological spirituality. Русский

The Holy Mountain & the Philokalia

  • Mount Athos — The Holy Mountain — the Garden of the Theotokos and the monastic republic: St Athanasius and the Great Lavra, the twenty monasteries and the pan-Orthodox houses, the forms of monastic life, the home of hesychasm, and the treasures; the avaton and sovereignty given both-sides. Русский
  • The Philokalia — the 1782 anthology of the neptic fathers compiled by St Nikodemos and St Makarios; the hesychast heart, the Slavonic Dobrotolyubie of St Paisius and the Russian of St Theophan, The Way of a Pilgrim, and the modern rediscovery. Русский

Holy Scripture in the Orthodox Church

  • The Orthodox Church and Holy Scripture — Scripture within Tradition; the canon and the anagignoskomena; the Septuagint; patristic interpretation (Antioch and Alexandria); typology; Scripture in the liturgy; and the Orthodox engagement with modern biblical scholarship, given both-sides. Русский

A Georgian Martyr & a Cappadocian Wonderworker

  • St. Abo of Tbilisi (d. 786) — the Arab perfumer of Baghdad who converted to Christianity in Georgia and was martyred in Tbilisi for apostasy from Islam; the patron of the city, attested by the near-contemporary Life of Ioane Sabanisdze. Русский
  • St. Arsenios of Cappadocia (c. 1840–1924; glorified 1986) — the wonderworking priest-monk of Farasa who healed Christians and Muslims alike, baptized the future St Paisios, and reposed forty days after the population exchange as he had foretold. Русский

Holy Tradition & Monasticism

  • Holy Tradition — the living memory of the Church: Paradosis and Tradition vs traditions, Scripture within Tradition, the consensus of the Fathers, the councils and the Creed, the liturgy and the icons as Tradition; the development question and the modern theologians (Lossky, Florovsky, Khomiakov) given both-sides. Русский
  • Orthodox Monasticism — the history and theology of the monastic life: the desert origins, St Basil and the Asketikon, the Studite reform, Athos and hesychasm, Slavic and Russian monasticism (with the Possessor/Non-Possessor debate), the degrees and vows, and monasticism today. Русский

A Georgian King, a Russian Visionary & a Frankish Patroness

  • St. Vakhtang I Gorgasali (5th c.) — the warrior-king of Iberia who founded Tbilisi and defended Georgian Christianity against Zoroastrian Persia; a martyr-king whose late, semi-epic Life is handled source-critically. Русский
  • St. Alexander of Svir (1448–1533) — the monastic founder of the Russian North who, by the tradition, was granted a vision of the Holy Trinity as three men, as Abraham was; his incorrupt relics, seized in 1918, were rediscovered and returned in 1998. Русский
  • St. Genevieve of Paris (c. 419–512) — the consecrated virgin and patroness of Paris who turned back the city’s panic before Attila by prayer and fasting; a pre-Schism Western saint attested by the near-contemporary Vita Genovefae. Русский

The Great Schism, the Church Fathers & the Jesus Prayer

  • The Great Schism — the progressive estrangement of Rome and the Orthodox East: the drift of the first millennium, the Photian crisis and 879–880, the anathemas of 1054 and their lifting in 1965, the sack of Constantinople in 1204, the failed unions of Lyons (1274) and Ferrara–Florence (1438–39), the Unia of Brest (1596), and the unresolved primacy question of the modern dialogue (Ravenna 2007, Chieti 2016) — academic sourcing assessed from within the Orthodox Church. Русский
  • The Church Fathers — a survey compendium of the patristic witnesses, from St Clement of Rome to St Gregory Palamas and beyond: what makes a Father, the successive generations, the two golden ages, the Christological centuries, the ascetical and mystical Fathers, how the texts reach us (manuscripts, Migne, the critical editions), and the consensus patrum and neopatristic synthesis today; completes the sources-of-theology set with Scripture and Tradition. Русский
  • The Jesus Prayer — “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”: the words and their biblical roots, the theology of the Name, the history from the Egyptian desert to the Athonite hesychasts, the Russian reception from Nil Sorsky to Optina and the Pilgrim, the practice (rope, rule, three degrees), the Name-of-God controversy of 1912–13, the warnings on delusion, and the modern witnesses. Русский

A Queen-Martyr of the Caucasus & Britain’s Protomartyr

  • St. Shushanik (c. 440–475) — the Armenian-born queen-martyr of Gugark, daughter of Vardan Mamikonian, imprisoned six years by her apostate husband Varsken; the Martyrdom written by her own confessor Jakob Tsurtaveli (476–483) is the oldest surviving original work of Georgian literature — a shared saint of the undivided Caucasus, venerated by both the Georgian and Armenian churches. Русский
  • St. Alban of Britain — the Protomartyr of Britain, who exchanged clothes with the cleric he sheltered and died in his place at Verulamium; his cult, anchored by St Germanus’s visit in 429, is the oldest continuously attested in Britain, while the date of his martyrdom (c. 209 – c. 304) is the collection’s central source-critical study. Русский

The Akathist & Orthodox Hymnography

  • The Akathist & Orthodox Hymnography — liturgical poetry as dogma sung: the forms (troparion, kontakion, canon) and the Octoechos; the Akathist to the Theotokos with its disputed authorship as the source-critical flagship; Romanos, Andrew of Crete, the Damascene and the Studites; Kassia and the women hymnographers; Marian hymnography (Axion Estin, Sub tuum praesidium); the interlocking liturgical books; and the modern akathists, including «Glory to God for All Things». Русский

An Athonite Elder, an American Missionary, a Georgian Righteous & the Historian of the Franks

  • St. Ephraim of Katounakia (1912–1998; glorified 2020) — the hieromonk of the Katounakia desert who lived obedience under a harsh elder as his cross, received noetic prayer from St Joseph the Hesychast, and served the Divine Liturgy daily with tears; glorified by the Ecumenical Patriarchate with St Joseph in March 2020. Русский
  • St. Sebastian of Jackson (1863–1940; glorified 2015) — Sebastian (Dabovich), the first person born in the United States to become an Orthodox priest: San Francisco-born Serbian missionary, founder of St Sava’s in Jackson (1894), pioneer of English-language Orthodox preaching and publishing, reposed at Žiča. Русский
  • St. Ilia the Righteous (1837–1907; canonized 1987) — Ilia Chavchavadze, the father of the modern Georgian nation: writer, publisher, and defender of the suppressed Georgian Church, assassinated at Tsitsamuri; the perpetrators question and the national-hero-vs-saint question are both given both-sides treatment. Русский
  • St. Gregory of Tours (c. 538–594) — bishop of Tours and guardian of St Martin’s shrine, the historian of Merovingian Gaul (Ten Books of Histories) and father of Western hagiography (the miracle books, Life of the Fathers); a pre-Schism Western saint whose value and limits as a witness are weighed throughout. Русский

Sts. Constantine & Helen and Orthodox Eschatology

  • Sts. Constantine & Helen — the equals-to-the-apostles: the Milvian Bridge vision with its diverging Lactantius/Eusebius accounts as the source-critical flagship, Nicaea, Constantinople, the dark chapter of Crispus and Fausta given both sides, the deathbed baptism stated honestly; St Helen’s finding of the Cross traced through its attestation layers, and the Donation of Constantine and Sylvester legend given their dispositions. Русский
  • Orthodox Eschatology — death, judgment, and the age to come: the inaugurated Kingdom, the particular judgment, the toll-houses controversy as the intra-Orthodox both-sides flagship (Rose, Puhalo, Pomazansky), prayer for the dead and the rejection of purgatory (St Mark of Ephesus at Florence), the Second Coming, the river-of-fire reading, the apokatastasis question (553, Nyssa, the modern debate), and eschatology lived. Русский

A Zadonsk Bishop, an American Confessor & the Neomartyrs

  • St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (1724–1783; glorified 1861) — the teacher-bishop of Voronezh who retired to Zadonsk and wrote On True Christianity and A Spiritual Treasure Gathered from the World; the Western-influence question (Arndt, Florovsky’s critique) and the documented Dostoevsky connection are treated both-sides. Русский
  • St. Alexis of Wilkes-Barre (1854–1909; glorified 1994) — Alexis Toth, the Carpatho-Rusyn priest whose 1889 encounter with Archbishop John Ireland led St Mary’s Minneapolis and a movement of parishes back to the Orthodox Church; Confessor and Defender of Orthodoxy in America, with the historiography given both sides and no polemic. Русский
  • The Neomartyrs of the Ottoman Era — the Orthodox martyrs under Ottoman rule (c. 1453–1867): the three paths to martyrdom, the New Martyrologion of St Nicodemus as the source flagship, the women neomartyrs (St Philothei of Athens), the Athonite preparation of martyrs and its canonical tension, and the tolerance-vs-persecution historiography — stated factually, without polemic. Русский

The Psalter, the Angels & the Prophets

  • The Psalter & the Daily Office — the Church’s prayerbook and her non-Eucharistic cycle of prayer: the Septuagint Psalter and its twenty kathismata, the psalms that anchor each service, the full daily cursus from Vespers to the Hours, the cathedral-vs-monastic history of the office, the Psalter in Orthodox piety (for the departed, in the cell rule), and praying the psalms — including the imprecatory ones — as the tradition does. Русский
  • The Bodiless Powers — the angels in Orthodox faith and life: the invisible creation, the nine Dionysian ranks, the archangels (with each of the seven names pinned to its actual source), angels in Scripture and the guardian angels, the fall and the demons treated soberly, the angelic liturgy and iconography, and the boundary between honoring the angels and worshiping them. Русский
  • The Holy Prophets — the Old Testament saints of the Church, each with a feast: Moses the God-seer, Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah the “fifth evangelist,” Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and the Three Youths, the Twelve, and David the psalmist-prophet; the prophets in worship and the iconostasis, with the Lives of the Prophets pseudepigraphon weighed as the source of the martyrdom and tomb traditions. Русский

The Father of the Nemanjić Dynasty

  • St. Simeon the Myrrh-Gusher (c. 1113–1199) — Stefan Nemanja, Grand Župan of Raška and unifier of Serbia, who abdicated at the height of his power, was tonsured Simeon, and founded Hilandar on Athos with his son St Sava; his myrrh-gushing relics reconciled his warring sons, and the vine at his Hilandar tomb remains a living tradition of intercession. Русский

Modern Theological Literature

  • God, History, & Dialectic — a study of Joseph P. Farrell’s massive theological history of the “Two Europes”: the author’s two careers, the work’s thesis (Augustinian simplicity and the Filioque as the root of a dialectical Second Europe) expounded in its own terms, the First-Europe counter-tradition (Cappadocians, Maximus, Photius, Palamas), and the scholarly debate around such grand East-West narratives — with the Church’s confessed dogma, Farrell’s private thesis, and open scholarly disputes kept strictly distinct. Русский

Modern Orthodox Theologians — the Paris School and the Russian Emigration

The collections in these four sections cover theologians and writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. None of them is a canonized saint, and none is presented as one: each is titled as he or she was in life — Father, Metropolitan, or plain name for the laypeople — and each collection states plainly what the Church has and has not said. Their distinctive theses are given as their own theological work, never as the teaching of the Church, and where their work has been contested by other Orthodox the criticism is reported in its own terms.

  • Fr. Sergius Bulgakov (1871–1944) — the Marxist economist and Duma deputy who returned to the Church, was ordained in revolutionary Moscow, and became dean of the St Sergius Institute in Paris; his sophiology drew formal censure from Moscow and a declaration of heresy from the ROCOR Council in 1935, and the collection sets out what those three acts did and did not say before weighing the modern reappraisal. Русский
  • Fr. Georges Florovsky (1893–1979) — priest, patrologist and historian of Russian thought, whose call for a “neo-patristic synthesis” and whose Ways of Russian Theology set the agenda of Orthodox theology for two generations; his ecumenical work and the modern critique of the neo-patristic programme are both given in full. Русский
  • Vladimir Lossky (1903–1958) — the layman whose Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1944) is the most widely read work of Orthodox theology of the century; apophaticism, essence and energies, person and nature, and the filioque as a substantive divergence — together with the scholarly debate that now contests several of those signature theses. Русский
  • Fr. Nicholas Afanasiev (1893–1966) — artillery officer, canonist and professor at St Sergius, whose eucharistic ecclesiology (“wherever the eucharist is, there is the Church in her fullness”) reshaped twentieth-century thinking about the local church, reached the Second Vatican Council, and was substantially criticized by Zizioulas. Русский
  • Paul Evdokimov (1901–1970) — layman, night worker at the Citroën plant, wartime helper of hunted Jews and displaced persons, and the theologian of “interiorized monasticism,” of marriage as an ascetic way, and of beauty and the icon. Русский

Modern Orthodox Theologians — the Church under the Soviet State

  • Fr. Pavel Florensky (1882–1937) — mathematician, priest, art historian and electrical engineer, author of The Pillar and Ground of the Truth and Iconostasis, who refused to emigrate, worked as a Soviet scientist in his cassock, and was shot near Leningrad in 1937; the question of his glorification, which remains open, is treated in its own section. Русский
  • Fr. Alexander Men (1935–1990) — born into a Jewish family and baptized in infancy in the catacomb church, a village priest for thirty years who catechized much of the Moscow intelligentsia and published abroad under pseudonyms; murdered on his way to the Liturgy in September 1990 in a case that has never been solved. Русский

Modern Orthodox Theologians — the American Reception

  • Fr. Alexander Schmemann (1921–1983) — dean of St Vladimir’s, founder of liturgical theology as a modern discipline, author of For the Life of the World, broadcaster to the Soviet Union for thirty years, and a central figure in the OCA’s autocephaly of 1970; the liturgiological critique of his historical work and the candour of his Journals are both weighed. Русский
  • Fr. John Meyendorff (1926–1992) — Byzantinist and church historian whose Sorbonne thesis and critical edition of the Triads re-founded Palamas studies in the West, and whose Byzantine Theology remains the standard English survey; the later scholarly reassessment of his Palamas interpretation is given its own section. Русский

Modern Orthodox Theologians — Britain, France and the Greek Renewal

  • Metropolitan Kallistos Ware (1934–2022) — the Anglican schoolboy who walked into a Russian vigil service in 1952, was chrismated in 1958, was tonsured on Patmos, and became for two generations the great explainer of Orthodoxy in English through The Orthodox Church, The Orthodox Way and the English Philokalia; his contested later positions are set out with his own words alongside his critics’. Русский
  • Metropolitan John Zizioulas (1931–2023) — the theologian of the Ecumenical Patriarchate whose Being as Communion (1985) is the most argued-over work of Orthodox theology in English since Lossky; personhood and communion, the monarchy of the Father, eucharistic ecclesiology, primacy and the Ravenna document — with the large critical literature given a full section. Русский
  • Christos Yannaras (1935–2024) — the Greek lay philosopher who reshaped the language of Orthodox theology in Greece: an ontology of the person, apophaticism read against Heidegger, the critique of “religionization,” and a contested account of the West that the collection presents as his own thesis. Русский
  • Panayiotis Nellas (1936–1986) — schoolteacher, scholar of Nicholas Cabasilas, founder of the journal Synaxi and of the patristic series Epi tas Pigas, and author of Deification in Christ: the human being as “a deified animal,” Christ as the archetype of the human, and the patristic reading of the “garments of skin.” Русский
  • Olivier Clément (1921–2009) — the Frenchman who came to Christ out of a militantly secular upbringing and became the most widely read interpreter of Orthodoxy in French; The Roots of Christian Mysticism, his conversations with Patriarchs Athenagoras and Bartholomew, and his contested reflection on how a reformed papal primacy might be exercised. Русский
  • Elisabeth Behr-Sigel (1907–2005) — Alsatian, among the first women in France admitted to a theological faculty, received into the Orthodox Church by Fr Lev Gillet in 1929; historian of Russian spirituality and the central modern voice on the ministry of women, whose argument, its development over fifty years, and the Orthodox criticism of it are all set out. Русский

What the Church Confesses — Chalcedon, Theosis & the Synodikon

These three collections are written from within the Orthodox Church rather than between confessions. Where the Church has defined — the Council of Chalcedon, the essence–energies distinction, theosis as the end of the Christian life — the collections confess rather than survey. Positions the Church has not settled are marked as such and given both sides; positions she has settled are not reopened. Separated and heterodox teachings are reported accurately in their own terms and from their own sources, which is a requirement of honesty rather than a concession on the substance.

  • Chalcedon & the Non-Chalcedonians — the Fourth Ecumenical Council (451) and the separation that followed it: Ephesus 431 and Cyril’s Twelve Anathemas, the Latrocinium of 449 and the Tome of Leo, the sessions and the deposition of Dioscorus, what the Definition actually confesses (“in two natures,” quoted exactly), the Henotikon and the parallel hierarchies of Severus and Jacob Baradaeus, Justinian and the Fifth Council, and the Fathers who answered them. A full section fixes the terminology — Monophysite, Miaphysite, non-Chalcedonian — and shows why precision strengthens rather than softens the Orthodox objection. The modern dialogue is confined to one section: the Chambésy Agreed Statements of 1989–90 and the 1993 Proposals were never received by any pan-Orthodox synodal act, no anathemas have been lifted, and there is no communion — set out with both Orthodox assessments and left unadjudicated, dated as of July 2026. Русский
  • Theosis — deification as the end for which man was made: the vocabulary and the exchange formula (“God became man that man might become god”), the scriptural ground in 2 Peter 1:4, Psalm 81/82 and the Transfiguration, the patristic witness from Irenaeus through Maximus to Palamas, image and likeness and the “garments of skin,” the essence–energies distinction that makes participation statable without collapsing Creator into creature, synergy and the sacramental way, the Western trajectory and the modern scholarly debate over Latin participation-doctrines, the guardrails against every counterfeit — and the doctrine as it is actually prayed, in the Liturgy and in the lives of the saints. Русский
  • The Synodikon of Orthodoxy — the liturgical act by which the Church names aloud what she confesses and what she rejects, proclaimed on the Sunday of Orthodoxy: the restoration of the icons in 843, the shape of a text that blesses and anathematizes in the same breath, the iconoclast and Christological chapters, the later strata added for John Italos and Soterichos, the Palamite chapters of 1341–1351, the recensions, and a full section on what an anathema is and is not. Built from two witnesses — the primitive Constantinopolitan form and the received Triodion text — and records that the roster of Christological heretics is absent from the earlier one. Русский

The Dogmatic Core

Collections on the doctrines the rest of the repository presupposes. Like the three above, they are written from within the Church: where she has defined, they confess; heterodox positions are reported accurately from their own texts and at their strongest, which is a requirement of honesty and not a softening of the substance.

  • The Holy Trinity — the central dogma, and the doctrine every other collection presupposes: the limits of theological language and the two ways of speaking about God; the scriptural witness, with Genesis 1:26 given both the patristic and the critical reading and the Johannine Comma given up; the unsettled pre-Nicene vocabulary; Arius reported from what he actually wrote, with the hostile transmission stated first; the Cappadocian settlement of ousia and hypostasis; Constantinople 381 and the divinity of the Spirit, including why the Creed does not call him God; the monarchy of the Father as the ground of divine unity; and the Filioque — the chronology from Toledo to 1014, the Latin case at its strongest with the 1995 Roman concessions quoted, and why the objection stands anyway. The modern personalist reading of Lossky and Zizioulas is confined to one section and left unadjudicated. Русский
  • The Cross and the Atonement — the doctrine of the Cross as the Church confesses it: the Old Testament figures and the four Passion narratives; what the Cross undoes — mortality and corruption rather than inherited guilt, and the lifelong bondage of the fear of death; the patristic account of death destroyed from within, and the descent into Hades which is the Orthodox icon of the Resurrection; the sacrificial vocabulary the Fathers use freely, with St Gregory the Theologian’s refusal of both answers to “to whom was the ransom paid” quoted at length and St Gregory of Nyssa’s fishhook conceded rather than smoothed over; the logic of assumption and exchange; Anselm and the Reformers reported from Cur Deus Homo, the Institutes, Heidelberg and Westminster, with satisfaction and penal substitution kept distinct; the Church’s own judgment, grounded in the councils of 1156–1157 on to whom the sacrifice is offered — together with an unflinching report of the juridical language in Cabasilas, Dositheus, Mogila, Philaret and Macarius Bulgakov, and Florovsky’s contested account of it. The Aulén taxonomy, the “Western captivity” narrative and the fairness of Orthodox readings of Anselm are confined to one section and left unadjudicated. Русский
  • Pneumatology — the Holy Spirit, and specifically what he does: the doctrine of his person is settled in the Trinity collection, and this one takes up his work. The scriptural witness and Pentecost; St Basil’s argument from the Church’s own practice — the baptismal formula and the doxology — to the Spirit’s rank; what is pneumatologically at stake in the Filioque, with Augustine reported from De Trinitate at his strongest; the Spirit and the Church, and the charism-and-institution question; the epiclesis, where the collection notes that Cabasilas’ own defence concedes the Roman canon has a functionally equivalent prayer; chrismation; the acquisition of the Holy Spirit in St Seraphim and Motovilov, with the transmission pinned; the gifts and the fruits, including why the “seven gifts” is an artifact of the Greek and Latin versions of Isaiah 11:2; and the discernment of spirits. Русский
  • Ecclesiology — what the Church is, and the frame the jurisdictional questions actually need: the Body of Christ before the institution; the four marks, with catholicity distinguished from sobornost and the latter placed where it belongs, in the nineteenth century rather than the Fathers; the bishop and the eucharistic assembly; conciliarity and the question of reception; akribeia and oikonomia and the limits of economy; the boundaries of the Church, where St Cyprian and the practice reflected in St Basil’s Canon 1 are set against each other and the variation in Orthodox reception practice is reported as a fact rather than a scandal; autocephaly, canonical territory and the diptychs; and symphonia, the nation, and the condemnation of phyletism in 1872. Section 09, on the Ukrainian question, is written from the standpoint of the Russian Church and ROCOR and is labelled accordingly; the other twenty-five files are Pan-Orthodox. Русский

The Ascetic Vocabulary

The reference layer beneath the collections above. This terminology is used constantly across the saints’ collections and the spiritual-life articles and was, until now, defined nowhere in this library.

  • The Passions and the Ascetic Vocabulary — the technical language of Orthodox ascetic theology, set out as a working vocabulary rather than as a set of texts: nous and kardia, logismoi and the stages of assent, the passions and the eight thoughts (Evagrius → Cassian → Gregory the Great, whose seven are not the familiar modern seven), nepsis, diakrisis, plane/prelest, and apatheia — each with its Greek and its Slavonic/Russian form, what it does not mean, and where it is treated at length. Includes a source-critical account of the vocabulary’s origins — Evagrius’ condemnation and what it did and did not reach, the Macarian corpus and the Messalian question, and why rendering nous as “intellect” misleads the English reader — and a closing file on how this monastic literature is misapplied, including the plain statement that the passions are not a taxonomy of mental illness. Русский

Liturgical Time

The shape of the Orthodox year, and the calendar question given a connected treatment rather than the scattered one it has had.

  • Liturgical Time and the Calendar — time sanctified and the eighth day; the daily, weekly, fixed and movable cycles; the Paschalion and what the First Ecumenical Council actually settled about it, which is less than it is usually credited with; the Julian calendar, the mechanism of its drift, and the careful distinction between what the drift touches and what it does not; the Congress of 1923 and the Revised Julian calendar, including the astronomical Paschalion that congress considered and declined; the case for the old calendar, argued without the two props such arguments usually lean on — the Sigillion of 1583 is carried as disputed and expressly not relied upon, and the claim that Nicaea prescribed the Julian calendar is documented as false — and the case on the other side reported at full strength; then the limits, since no council has dogmatized a calendar and communion is not conditioned on it. This library keeps the Julian calendar and does not follow those who broke communion over it. Русский

How to Use

  • Browse: click any collection above; each has a topic-organized README.
  • Cross-reference: relative links between files work on the rendered site and on GitHub.
  • Read offline: the entire repository is plain markdown — clone with git clone and read in any editor.

Methodology

See METHODOLOGY.md for the citation standard (including PG/PL conventions for patristic sources) and the verification protocol that governs all content in this repository.

Important Caveats

The collections were generated by an AI assistant. Care has been taken to cite real sources, but content should be verified against primary sources before being relied upon for catechetical or academic purposes. Each file marks low-confidence claims with [Verify] tags; claims under active dispute carry structured [Disputed: ...] notes per the methodology. These references are not a substitute for catechesis under a priest or for spiritual direction.

Source: github.com/tedaford/orthodox-info