The Fathers Today
The twentieth century made the Fathers contemporary again — Florovsky’s “return to the Fathers” and the neopatristic synthesis, Lossky’s mystical theology — and the twenty-first century began arguing about it: the Volos “post-patristic” controversy, with both intra-Orthodox sides named. This section treats the modern career of the patristic inheritance and closes the whole guide with the consensus patrum rightly understood: against patristic fundamentalism, and for the ordinary believer who meets the Fathers every time she stands in church.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox
Overview
The guide’s final section asks what the Fathers are for now. The first file narrates the neopatristic synthesis — its Paris-exile origins, Florovsky’s 1936 manifesto, Lossky’s synthesis, its dominance in twentieth-century Orthodox theology — and then the recent challenge: Kalaitzidis and the Volos Academy’s call to move “beyond” the neopatristic paradigm, the fierce reaction (the 2012 Piraeus conference), and the scholarly middle, presented per the repository’s both-sides rule for intra-Orthodox disputes. The second file distills the whole compendium into a closing statement: what the consensus patrum is and is not, why patristic fundamentalism betrays the Fathers it quotes, and how the ordinary believer already lives with the Fathers in the Liturgy.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-neopatristic-synthesis-and-its-critics.md | Florovsky’s “back to the Fathers” (Athens 1936) and “Christian Hellenism”; Lossky; the synthesis’ dominance; the critics — Kalaitzidis, the Volos conference (2010), the “post-patristic” controversy and the Piraeus reaction (2012) — both sides named, neither adjudicated |
| the-consensus-patrum-rightly-understood.md | The consensus as quality not head-count; the Vincentian canon and its limits; patristic fundamentalism as a danger (proof-texting, context-stripping, monastic maximalism misapplied); the Fathers and the ordinary believer — hymnography, prayers, and the Liturgy as the people’s patrology |
See Also
- Who Is a Father? — the criteria and the open age, presupposed here
- Tradition and the Modern Theologians — the companion treatment in the Holy Tradition compendium
- The Fathers in English — the practical reading path
- The Church Fathers — the topical article this collection expands