Section 08: Theology of Personhood
The theological system that Archimandrite Sophrony built upon St. Silouan’s experience: the hypostatic principle — the human person as the created image of the Trinitarian hypostasis — and the line of influence this theology has had on modern Orthodox thought. Throughout, the developed theology is attributed to Sophrony-developing-Silouan, never to Silouan simpliciter.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Athonite; canonized 1987)
St. Silouan left an experience and a handful of luminous sayings; he did not leave a system. The system is Sophrony’s. From his elder’s witness — love of enemies as the criterion of grace, prayer for the whole world, “keep thy mind in hell, and despair not” — Sophrony drew out a full theology of the person (hypostasis), set against the impersonalism he had known as a young man, which has since fed wider currents of contemporary Orthodox theology. This section expounds that theology and traces its influence, observing a strict discipline about who said what.
Contents
| File | Topic |
|---|---|
| Hypostatic Principle | Sophrony’s central theology: the person as image of the Trinitarian hypostasis, kenotic love as the act of personhood, the Gethsemane prayer and bearing “the whole Adam,” the persona against individualism, expounded from We Shall See Him as He Is and His Life Is Mine with the analysis of N. Sakharov’s I Love Therefore I Am |
| Influence on Theology | The line outward: the relation to John Zizioulas’ personhood theology (convergence, carefully attributed, not derivation), Met. Kallistos Ware’s popularizations, the monastic-theological renewal (Vlachos; the Athonite revival), Silouan-Sophrony in academic theology, and the Essex caution that experience precedes system |
How to Use
- Read Hypostatic Principle first: it sets out the content of Sophrony’s theology and the citations that anchor it.
- Read Influence on Theology for where that theology traveled — and the distinctions between genuine derivation and mere convergence.
The section observes a rule stated in Section 07: the vocabulary of hypostasis, persona, and kenotic personhood is Sophrony’s elaboration. Silouan gave the lived reality; Sophrony gave the theological grammar for it. The scholarship — above all N. Sakharov’s I Love Therefore I Am — is used because it maintains this distinction rigorously.
Cross-References
- For Sophrony’s life, see The Disciple
- For Silouan’s own experience and sayings, see Section 01: Life and Context
- For a parallel question of how lived eldership becomes teaching, see St. Paisios: Spiritual Lineage
References
- Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov). We Shall See Him as He Is. Trans. Rosemary Edmonds. Tolleshunt Knights: Stavropegic Monastery of St. John the Baptist, 1988.
- Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov). His Life Is Mine. Trans. Rosemary Edmonds. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1977.
- Nicholas V. Sakharov. I Love Therefore I Am: The Theological Legacy of Archimandrite Sophrony. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002.