The Stăniloae Corpus

A guide to Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae’s principal works and their English translations: the twelve-volume Romanian Filocalia, the three-volume Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (Englished as The Experience of God), the 1938 Palamas monograph, and the shorter works on spirituality, the Trinity, and the Church available in English. This file orients the reader to what Stăniloae wrote and where to find it.

Tradition: Romanian Orthodox

The Shape of the Corpus

Stăniloae’s output was vast, spanning some six decades and including books, translations, studies, and articles; only a portion has been translated into English. His corpus can be organized around three great pillars — the Filocalia, the Dogmatics, and the Palamas study — with a body of shorter works around them (Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Present, SPCK, 2015, ch. 6, on the range of Stăniloae’s writings; Miller, The Gift of the World: An Introduction to the Theology of Dumitru Staniloae, T&T Clark, 2000, on the corpus). What follows is an orienting guide, not an exhaustive bibliography; the standard Romanian bibliographies and the scholarly studies should be consulted for completeness.

The Filocalia

Stăniloae’s Filocalia — his annotated Romanian translation of the Philokalia, in twelve volumes published between 1946 (Sibiu) and about 1991 (Bucharest) — is the largest of his undertakings and, because of its extensive commentary, an original theological work as well as a translation (see The Filocalia Translation and The Added Commentary). It is not available as a complete set in English, though its authors — Maximus the Confessor, Diadochus, the Macarian writings, and the rest — are available in other English editions of the Philokalia and of the individual Fathers. Stăniloae’s own commentary remains, for the most part, accessible only in Romanian (Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers, 2015, ch. 6, on the Romanian Filocalia).

The Dogmatics: The Experience of God

His systematic masterwork, the Teologia Dogmatică Ortodoxă (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology), was published in three volumes at Bucharest in 1978 (see The Experience of God). Its English translation, The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, translated by Ioan Ioniță and Robert Barringer and published by Holy Cross Orthodox Press (Brookline, Massachusetts), appeared over roughly two decades from 1994, in a series of volumes carrying the subtitles Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God (vol. 1), The World: Creation and Deification (vol. 2), The Person of Jesus Christ as God and Saviour (vol. 3), The Church: Communion in the Holy Spirit (vol. 4), and further volumes on the sacraments and the fulfilment of creation (Stăniloae, The Experience of God, trans. Ioniță and Barringer, Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1994–2013, volume subtitles; Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers, 2015, ch. 6). [Disputed: because the three Romanian volumes were re-divided for the English edition and the volumes appeared over many years, sources differ slightly on the number and dating of the English volumes; readers should consult the Holy Cross Orthodox Press catalogue for the authoritative list.] This is the single most important work of the corpus for the English reader.

The Palamas Monograph

Viața și învățătura Sfântului Grigorie Palama (The Life and Teaching of St Gregory Palamas), published at Sibiu in 1938 with translated texts, is the pioneering early study that launched Stăniloae’s career and established his lifelong engagement with Palamism (see Stăniloae and Palamism). It is a landmark in the modern recovery of Palamas (Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers, 2015, ch. 6, on the 1938 monograph).

Shorter Works in English

A number of Stăniloae’s shorter works are available in English and are the most accessible entry points to his thought:

  • Orthodox Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholarly, trans. Jerome Newville and Otilia Kloos (South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2002) — his treatment of the ascetic and mystical life, the practical counterpart to his dogmatics (Miller, The Gift of the World, 2000, on Stăniloae’s spiritual theology).
  • Theology and the Church, trans. Robert Barringer (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980) — a collection of essays introducing his ecclesiology and theological method to English readers.
  • The Holy Trinity: In the Beginning There Was Love, trans. Roland Clark (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2012) — a short work on the Trinity as communion of love (see Person, Communion, and Deification).
  • Further translated pieces on prayer, the Jesus Prayer, and the Christian life have appeared in various collections and journals.

[Disputed: the exact publication details (publisher, year) of some English translations of Stăniloae’s shorter works are given with variation across catalogues; the entries above reflect commonly cited editions and should be verified against library records for citation purposes.]

Biographical and Memoir Sources

For the life, the memoir of his daughter, Lidia Ionescu Stăniloae — in Romanian, Lumina faptei din lumina cuvântului and related writings — is a primary source, drawn on by the English-language biographers (Ionescu Stăniloae, memoir of her father; see Vlădeni and Early Life). The principal English studies — Miller’s The Gift of the World, Bartoş’s Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, and Louth’s chapter in Modern Orthodox Thinkers — together provide the fullest accessible account of the man and his work (Miller, The Gift of the World, 2000; Bartoş, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology, Paternoster, 1999; Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers, 2015, ch. 6).

Using the Corpus

For a reader beginning with Stăniloae, a natural path is: Orthodox Spirituality or The Holy Trinity as an accessible entry; then The Experience of God, volumes 1–2, for the heart of his systematic vision (revelation, the Trinity, creation, and deification); with Miller’s The Gift of the World as a scholarly companion. Those interested in his patristic work should turn to his reading of Maximus and Palamas, best approached through the secondary literature and, for those with Romanian, through the Filocalia commentary itself (Louth, Modern Orthodox Thinkers, 2015, ch. 6; Miller, The Gift of the World, 2000). The corpus rewards the reader who keeps in view the unity Stăniloae himself insisted on: that these are not separate genres — translation, dogmatics, spirituality — but facets of one theology, in which the experience of God and the doctrine of God are one (see Method and Sources).

See Also

References

  • Stăniloae, Dumitru. The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. Trans. Ioan Ioniță and Robert Barringer. 6 vols. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1994–2013. (The English translation of the 1978 Dogmatics; the central work of the corpus.)
  • Stăniloae, Dumitru. Orthodox Spirituality. Trans. Jerome Newville and Otilia Kloos. South Canaan, PA: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, 2002. (The ascetic and mystical life.)
  • Stăniloae, Dumitru. Theology and the Church. Trans. Robert Barringer. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980. (Essays on ecclesiology and method.)
  • Stăniloae, Dumitru. The Holy Trinity: In the Beginning There Was Love. Trans. Roland Clark. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2012. (The Trinity as communion of love.)
  • Stăniloae, Dumitru. Viața și învățătura Sfântului Grigorie Palama. Sibiu, 1938. (The Palamas monograph.)
  • Stăniloae, Dumitru (trans., annot.). Filocalia, 12 vols. Sibiu, 1946–1948; Bucharest, 1976–1991. (The Romanian Philokalia.)
  • Louth, Andrew. Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Present. London: SPCK, 2015. (Ch. 6: the range of Stăniloae’s writings and their English translations.)
  • Miller, Charles. The Gift of the World: An Introduction to the Theology of Dumitru Staniloae. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000. (Guide to the corpus and to his spiritual theology.)
  • Bartoş, Emil. Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology: An Evaluation and Critique of the Theology of Dumitru Staniloae. Carlisle: Paternoster, 1999. (Full-length study; bibliography of his work.)
  • Ionescu Stăniloae, Lidia. Lumina faptei din lumina cuvântului [The Light of the Deed from the Light of the Word]. Bucharest. (Memoir of her father; a primary biographical source.)