It is a characteristic of Orthodox Christianity that its theological history is conceived of very broadly and valued very highly; in the eyes of many commentators, Orthodoxy quite simply is patristic Christianity. According to one anecdote, a recent visitor to Mt Athos was told by one of the monks there, 'Here it is still the fourth century.' That claim is, of course, in many ways quite fatuous - but even so it reveals something very important about Orthodoxy. For to make such a claim is at once to present an important fact about how Orthodox Christians tend to think about the past: the past constantly flows towards the future and, in so doing, lives in the present. The past is not tidily compartmentalised and detached, as an object for disinterested study. This is not to deny the possibility of Orthodox Christians engaging professionally and seriously in historical study, even in the historical study of Orthodoxy. Rather, it is to make a claim about the process of continuously appropriating the past that animates Orthodox theology (and, perhaps, to shed light on why Fr Georges Florovsky regarded historical theology as having a special claim on the Orthodox).

This chapter will not attempt a history of Orthodox Christian doctrine; still less will it attempt a patrology. Both such projects are important and have their place, but what concerns us here is the exposition of patristic doctrine and that task is necessarily theological. Although it is important to be historically scrupulous in expositing that topic, our attention will be devoted less to historical detail and more to theological currents. For purposes of convenience, we will consider these currents as they were exemplified in the lives and writings of particular historical figures.