The Meyendorff Corpus

A reader’s guide to Meyendorff’s books: what each one is, in what order to approach them, which have been superseded and which have not, and where the specialist material lies. The bibliography is unusually large — some fifty volumes authored, edited or co-edited between 1959 and his death, with posthumous collections after — and the guide is arranged by use rather than by chronology.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox (emigration) / Orthodox Church in America

Where to Start

Begin with Byzantine Theology. Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974; 2nd ed. 1979) is the one-volume orientation, and remains the best English door into Eastern Christian thought as a whole (see Section 03). Two hundred and forty-three pages; the first half history, the second half doctrine.

Then the Christology. Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (Washington, DC: Corpus Books, 1969; rev. ed. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1975; French Le Christ dans la théologie byzantine, Paris: Cerf, 1969) is where the argument of the survey is actually made from the sources (see Section 04). Harder going, and worth it.

Then Palamas. A Study of Gregory Palamas (trans. George Lawrence, London: Faith Press, 1964; 2nd ed. 1974; French Introduction à l’étude de Grégoire Palamas, Paris: Seuil, 1959) — read with Section 08 beside it. For a shorter and gentler treatment, St Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1974).

The Major Works, by Field

Palamas and hesychasm

  • Introduction à l’étude de Grégoire Palamas. Patristica Sorbonensia 3. Paris: Seuil, 1959. Eng. A Study of Gregory Palamas, trans. George Lawrence. London: Faith Press, 1964; 2nd ed. Faith Press / SVS Press, 1974. The doctoral monograph. Still the standard biography of Palamas; the interpretive frame is contested.
  • Grégoire Palamas: Défense des saints hésychastes, ed. Meyendorff. Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense 30–31. Louvain, 1959; 2nd ed. 1973. The critical edition of the Triads with French translation. Not superseded.
  • St Grégoire Palamas et la mystique orthodoxe. Paris: Seuil, 1959; reissued 1976. The popular French treatment.
  • St Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1974. The English counterpart of the above.
  • Byzantine Hesychasm: Historical, Theological and Social Problems — Collected Studies. London: Variorum Reprints, 1974. The specialist articles. Where the technical arguments live.
  • Gregory Palamas: The Triads, ed. Meyendorff, trans. Nicholas Gendle. Classics of Western Spirituality. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1983. The standard English selection, with Meyendorff’s introduction.
  • With Michael A. Fahey, Trinitarian Theology East and West: St Thomas Aquinas – St Gregory Palamas. Brookline, MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1977.

Byzantine theology and Christology

  • Le Christ dans la théologie byzantine. Paris: Cerf, 1969. Eng. Christ in Eastern Christian Thought. Washington, DC: Corpus Books, 1969; rev. ed. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1975.
  • Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes. New York: Fordham University Press / London: Mowbrays, 1974; 2nd ed. 1979; rev. printing 1983. French Initiation à la théologie byzantine (Cerf); Italian, Polish, Serbian and Russian versions followed.
  • The Byzantine Legacy in the Orthodox Church. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1982. Collected essays on the Byzantine inheritance in modern Orthodoxy.

Church history

  • Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450–680 A.D. The Church in History II. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1989. xv + 402 pp. The second volume of a projected multi-volume history; covers the expansion of Christianity East and West in the fifth to seventh centuries, the Christological councils, the imperial factor, and the growth of Roman primacy. French Unité de l’Empire et divisions des chrétiens (Paris: Cerf, 1992). Named as an anchor source by the repository’s councils collection (The Seven Ecumenical Councils).
  • Byzantium and the Rise of Russia: A Study of Byzantino-Russian Relations in the Fourteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981; repr. SVS Press, 1989; Russian Vizantiia i Moskovskaia Rus’, 1990 (see Section 05).
  • With Aristeides Papadakis (as principal author), The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy: The Church 1071–1453 A.D. The Church in History IV. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1994 (posthumous). Cited throughout the repository’s schism collection as the Orthodox scholarly history of the period (The Great Schism).

Ecclesiology and the contemporary Church

  • The Orthodox Church: Its Past and Its Role in the World Today. London: Darton, Longman & Todd / New York: Pantheon, 1962; 3rd rev. ed. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1981. French original L’Église Orthodoxe, hier et aujourd’hui, Paris: Seuil, 1960. The general introduction; now dated in its contemporary sections but valuable for its historical chapters.
  • Orthodoxy and Catholicity. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1966. French Orthodoxie et Catholicité, Paris: Seuil, 1965.
  • The Primacy of Peter: Essays in Ecclesiology and the Early Church, ed. Meyendorff. Rev. ed. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1992 (earlier French, La primauté de Pierre dans l’Église orthodoxe, 1963; earlier English editions). The Orthodox theology of primacy, cited as such at Filioque and Papal Primacy.
  • Catholicity and the Church. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1983.
  • Living Tradition. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1978. The methodological statement: what tradition is, how it lives, and how the unchanging faith is distinguished from its changing historical expression. The key text for understanding his method, and the one his critics engage (see Divorce, Remarriage, and the Pastoral Questions). Cf. Holy Tradition.
  • Vision of Unity and Witness to the World. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, both 1987. The collected editorials from The Orthodox Church, 1965–1984 (see Section 07).
  • Rome, Constantinople, Moscow: Historical and Theological Studies. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1996 (posthumous).

Pastoral theology

  • Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1970; 2nd expanded ed. 1975; 3rd rev. ed. 1984; repr. 2000. French Le Mariage dans la perspective orthodoxe, 1986 (see Section 06).
  • “The Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.” OCA Department of Religious Education, 1975, 1978, 1989. The parish catechetical version.

Edited series

  • Christian Spirituality, World Spirituality series: vol. 1, Origins to the Twelfth Century, ed. with Bernard McGinn (New York: Crossroad, 1985); vol. 2, High Middle Ages and Reformation, ed. with Jill Raitt and Bernard McGinn (1987); vol. 3, Post-Reformation and Modern, ed. with Louis Dupré and Don E. Saliers (1989).
  • The Legacy of St Vladimir, ed. with John Breck and Eleana Silk. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1990.
  • The New Man: An Orthodox and Reformed Dialogue, ed. with Joseph C. McLelland, 1973.

The articles

The seminary’s bibliography records several hundred articles across four decades, in St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Studia Patristica, Byzantion, the Greek Orthodox Theological Review and the European journals, in French, German, Italian, Russian, Serbian and Polish (St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, “Protopresbyter John Meyendorff,” svots.edu). Much of the specialist Palamas material is gathered in the 1974 Variorum volume; much of the rest has never been collected.

What Has Been Superseded, and What Has Not

Not superseded.

  • The Louvain critical edition of the Triads.
  • The biography and chronology of Palamas in the Study.
  • Byzantine Theology and Christ in Eastern Christian Thought as expositions of the conciliar and doctrinal material.
  • Byzantium and the Rise of Russia as a study of fourteenth-century Byzantino-Russian ecclesiastical diplomacy.
  • Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective as the standard English treatment of its subject.

Partly superseded.

  • The account of Barlaam in the Study, on the evidence assembled by Sinkewicz and Fyrigos.
  • The technical treatment of the sixth-century authors (the Leontii) in Christ in Eastern Christian Thought, where the specialist literature has moved.
  • The East–West narrative in its sharper forms, on the evidence of Flogaus and Demetracopoulos on Palamas’s use of Augustine and of Plested on the Palamas–Aquinas framing.

Contested.

Dated by events.

  • The contemporary sections of The Orthodox Church (1962/1981) and the ecumenical editorials, which describe a world — the Soviet-era churches, the WCC at its height, the immediate post-conciliar Catholic conversation — that no longer exists. They remain valuable as documents of their moment.

A Practical Note for Citation

The repository’s own files cite Meyendorff inconsistently in a few places — Byzantine Theology as 1973/1974/1979, Christ in Eastern Christian Thought as 1969/1975, the Triads as Mahwah or New York, Marriage as 1975 or 2000 — because different editions were consulted. All of these are real editions. This collection’s master README gives the full imprint chain for each principal work, and where sources genuinely disagree about a first-publication year the disagreement is flagged rather than resolved silently (see Section 03 on the 1973/1974 question and Section 05 on 1980/1981).

See Also

References

  • St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. “Protopresbyter John Meyendorff.” svots.edu. (The complete bibliography, from which the imprints, editions, translations and dates above are taken.)
  • OrthodoxWiki. “John Meyendorff.” (Used to corroborate the edition sequence of Marriage, Byzantine Theology, and the Russian and Polish versions.)
  • Meyendorff, John. The works listed above, with their imprints as given.
  • Sinkewicz, Robert E. “The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God in the Early Writings of Barlaam the Calabrian.” Mediaeval Studies 44 (1982): 181–242.
  • Flogaus, Reinhard. “Palamas and Barlaam Revisited.” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 42.1 (1998): 1–32.
  • Plested, Marcus. Orthodox Readings of Aquinas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.