03 — St. Sergius and the Teaching Life
In 1953 Evdokimov returned to the institute where he had been one of the first students, this time as professor of moral theology — a layman teaching future priests. From that chair he wrote the books that made his name, took a doctorate in theology from the Institute itself for L’Orthodoxie (1959), served the ecumenical movement from the late 1940s, lectured at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey and at the Institut Catholique de Paris, and sat as an Orthodox observer at the fourth session of the Second Vatican Council.
Tradition: Russian Orthodox (emigration)
Files
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| Professor at St. Sergius | The 1953 appointment, what he taught, the doctorate for L’Orthodoxie, and the significance of a lay professor of moral theology |
| The Ecumenical Vocation and Vatican II | The World Council of Churches, Bossey, the Institut Catholique, and the fourth session of Vatican II |
Why This Section Matters
Two things distinguish Evdokimov’s teaching career from those of his colleagues. The first is that he was a layman in a faculty of priests, holding the chair of moral theology — the discipline that deals most directly with how ordinary Christians live. The second is that he was, more than any other member of the St. Sergius faculty of his generation, at home in the Western Christian world: he taught the history of Western Christianity, lectured to Protestants at Bossey and to Catholics at the Institut Catholique, and was one of the handful of Orthodox present at Vatican II. His ecumenism was not a departmental speciality but a temperament; it also drew him, and draws his memory, into the wider Orthodox argument over ecumenism itself.
See Also
- 02 — The War and the Refugees — the work that continued alongside the teaching
- 09 — Legacy and Assessment — how the ecumenical reputation has been weighed
- Fr. Nicholas Afanasiev — his St. Sergius colleague and fellow observer at Vatican II
- The Ecumenism Debate — the wider Orthodox controversy
References
- Bordeianu, Radu. “Orthodox Observers at the Second Vatican Council and Intra-Orthodox Dynamics.” Theological Studies 79, no. 1 (2018): 86–106.
- OrthodoxWiki. “Paul Evdokimov.”
- Wikipedia. “Paul Evdokimov.”