¹ For the amalgam of the theological heritage of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, see Noble, Ivana, “Various Christian Traditions in One Ecclesial Body,” Baptistic Theologies 5 (2013) 68–83 Google Scholar.

² The ecumenical perspectivist approach has been largely influenced by experiences of bilateral and multilateral ecumenical dialogues, in which it has had its legitimate place. Problems arise, however, when this approach is taken as normative for any studying and presenting theology ecumenically. See, e.g., Bekehrung und Identität: Ökumene als Spannung zwischen Fremdem und Vertrautem (ed. Dagmar Heller; Beiheft zur Ökumenischen Rundschau 73; Frankfurt: Lembeck, 2003); The Unity We Have and the Unity We Seek: Ecumenical Prospects for the Third Millennium (ed. J. Moriss and N. Sagovsky; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2003); Charting Churches in a Changing Europe: Charta Oecumenica and the Process of Ecumenical Encounter (ed. Tim Noble et al.; Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006); Nüssel, Friederike and Sattler, Dorothea, Einführung in die ökumenische Theologie (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2008)Google Scholar; Avis, Paul, Reshaping Ecumenical Theology: The Church Made Whole? (New York: T & T Clark, 2010)Google Scholar.

³ This aspect is criticized, for example, by Höschele, Stefan, “Defining Ecumenics Fifty Years after Mackay,” Communio Viatorum 55 (2013) 105–136, at 112Google Scholar.

⁴ I have dealt with this problem in Ivana Noble, “Re-imagining Religious Belonging: Ecumenical Responses to Changing Religiosity in Europe,” in Religiöse Bindungen – neu reflektiert: Ökumenische Antworten auf Veränderungen der Religiosität in Europa (ed. I. Noble, U. Link-Wieczorek, and P. De Mey; Beiheft zur Ökumenischen Rundschau 73; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2011), 19–36.

⁵ The noun “tradition” (Greek paradosis, Latin traditio) means a “handing on,” or “passing on,” but also “narrative.” It appears, for example, when Paul speaks of “passing on” what he “received from the Lord” (1 Cor 11:2, 23). The Greek verb paradidonai (Latin tradere) includes the meaning “to entrust for safekeeping,” or “deliver,” as, for example, in 1 Cor 15:3, but it can also imply handing over to the enemy that which was entrusted, as in the passage about Judas's betrayal in John 6:71.

⁶ In the gospels, the relationship between what is “last,” in a spatial or temporal sense, and what is “the most important,” is captured in discourses on the Kingdom of God (in Matthew, more usually the “Kingdom of Heaven”). So, for example, at the beginning of Jesus's ministry, the Kingdom of Heaven is said to have “come near” (Matt 3:2; 4:17; Mark 1:15; Luke 4:43); or in the Beatitudes and the Lord's Prayer, the kingdom is understood as something that is yet to come, that must be asked for, that must be sought. It is a kingdom, as John says, that is not of this world (John 18:36) but that nonetheless enters into this world (Matt 12:28; Luke 11:20) and even suffers violence in this world (Matt 11:12). Another eschatological New Testament theme that is relevant here is “new life” (or “new creation”), which must be made room for here and now (for example, Matt 9:16–17; Mark 2:21–22; Luke 22:20; John 13:34–35; 1 Cor 5:7–8; 11:25; Gal 6:15) and that fills up the old with the new (Matt 1:22; 5:17), even though there is a certain sense in which the new is also different, as the rift between the good and evil in that which is old has passed away (2 Cor 5:17; 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 3:12; 21:1–5).

⁷ See, for example, Matt 15:2–6; Mark 7:8; Gal 1:14; 2 Cor 3:17.

⁸ See Libanio, João Batista, “Hope, Utopia, Resurrection,” in Systematic Theology: Perspectives from Liberation Theology (ed. Sobrino, J. and Ellacuría, I.; London: SCM, 1996) 279–90, esp. 281Google Scholar; see also idem, “The Current State of Theology,” The Month 9–10 (2000): 351–56. For a detailed analysis of Libanio's position, see Noble, Tim, The Poor in Liberation Theology: Pathway to God or Ideological Construct? (Cross Cultural Theologies; Sheffield: Equinox, 2013) 53–60 Google Scholar.

⁹ See Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951) 35, 40, 47, 66Google Scholar.

¹⁰ The classical Christian tradition is, according to Tillich, indebted both to Judaism and to Hellenism; it rose as a protection of the Biblical message that Jesus was the Christ. In the early church, until the movement of the Christian Apologists, the rest of the Christian message was relatively fluid. Only in the struggles with gnostic groups and their emphases on the secret traditions did Christian tradition as the public teaching of Christian churches have to be formulated. The early Catholicism that Tillich tracks back to Irenaeus and Tertullian, in particular, relying especially on Johaninne and Pauline scriptural texts, placed the Logos doctrine formulated by the Apologists into the framework of Bible and tradition. See Tillich, Paul, A History of Christian Thought (ed. Braaten, Carl E.; New York: Harper and Row, 1968) 21, 34, 37Google Scholar.

¹¹ Tillich criticizes the “Protestant feeling,” whereby the concept of tradition itself has become “suspect.” At the same time, he shows that churches that grew out of the Reformation cannot do without tradition: “Even the Protestant criticism was possible only with the help of particular elements in the Roman Catholic tradition; the Bible, Augustine, the German mystics, the humanistic underground, and so on.” Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology III: Life and the Spirit, History and the Kingdom of God (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963) 184 Google Scholar.

¹² Tillich is referring here to the meaning of the principle of reformation: “The principle of reformation is the corrective against the demonic suppression of the freedom of the Spirit by a tradition that is vested with absolute validity, in practice or by law; and since all churches have a tradition, this demonic temptation is actual and successful in all of them.” Tillich, Systematic Theology III, 185.

¹³ See Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, 139–40.

¹⁴ Tillich, Systematic Theology III, 196.

¹⁵ This correlation is strongly inspired by Schelling, according to whom the stable principle of the law, which was given to us by Peter, and the dynamic principle of reform, which we have from Paul, will be superseded when John's Church comes. See Schelling, Friedrich, “Philosophie der Offenbarung II,” in Sämtliche Werke (Abt. II, Bd 4) (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1858) 298–344 Google Scholar. See also Tillich, Paul, “The Permanent Significance of the Catholic Church for Protestantism (1941),” in Main Works 6: Theological Writings (ed. Humme, Gert; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992) 235–45Google Scholar, esp. 237–38; “Our Protestant Principles (1942),” in Main Works 6, 247–54.

¹⁶ André Gounelle emphasizes that Tillich, in his notion of “Catholic substance,” insists on “the substantial presence of God in certain places,” while the Protestant approach claims that “God is to be found beyond all we can touch, imagine, or think. God situates Godself outside and above even that which manifests God's presence.” André Gounelle, “Tillich: A Vision of Protestantism for Today,” in Paul Tillich's Theological Legacy: Spirit and Community (ed. Frederick J. Parrella; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1995) 161–63. See also Frederick J. Parrella, “Paul Tillich's Life and Spirituality: Some Reflections,” http://www.metodista.br/ppc/correlatio/correlatio06/paul-tillich-s-life-and-spirituality-some-reflections.

¹⁷ See Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, 139; Systematic Theology I, 85; “Art and Ultimate Reality (1960),” in Main Works 2: Writings in the Philosophy of Culture I (ed. Michael Palmer; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1990) 316–32, esp. 320–21.

¹⁸ See Tillich‘s interpretation of the objectifying of tradition in the late Middle Ages and at the First Vatican Council. In both cases there was a synthesis of the “one definite tradition” that was set in opposition to other movements and interpretations; in the case of the First Vatican Council, it was, furthermore, proclaimed as definite. Thus, “living tradition” was positively defined and therefore ceased to be truly alive. See Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, 140, 219.

¹⁹ See Tillich's demand that Protestant theology should not become “a-kairos,” thus “missing the demand of the historical moment.” Systematic Theology III, 6.

²⁰ We find this differentiation between an existential and theoretical understanding in another of Tillich's autobiographical works: Tillich, Paul, “What Am I? An Autobiographical Essay: Early Years,” in My Search for Absolutes (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967)Google Scholar Chapter 1.

²¹ Jan Štefan writes: “The proximity of death and the experience of the meaninglessness of life led to a double nervous breakdown of the German idealist and patriot, awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, and to a break from the values of the world and the lifestyle of bourgeois society. . . . He went to war a monarchist, idealist, and puritan; he came back from the war a revolutionary socialist, cultural pessimist, and Bohemian man-of-the-world.” Štefan, Jan, Karl Barth a ti druzí: Pět evangelických teologů 20. století: Barth–Brunner–Tillich–Althaus–Iwand (Brno: CDK, 2005) 319–20Google Scholar.

²² See Thiessen, Gesa, “Converted through an Image: Paul Tillich's Theology of Art,” in Konverze a konvertité (ed. Hanuš, Jiří and Noble, Ivana; Brno: CDK, 2009) 61–69, esp. 62Google Scholar; Tillich, Paul, “One Moment of Beauty (1950),” in On Art and Architecture (ed. John and Dillenberger, Jane; New York: Crossroad, 1987) 235–83Google Scholar. See also Arther, Don, “Paul Tillich as a Military Chaplain,” Newsletter of the North American Paul Tillich Society 26 (2000) 4–11 Google Scholar; Pauck, Wilhelm and Pauck, Marion, Paul Tillich: His Life and Thought I: Life (New York: Harper and Row, 1976) 41–51 Google Scholar.

²³ Tillich writes: “This is the principle of Byzantine culture, namely to transform reality into something which points to the eternal, not to change reality as in the Western world.” Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, 95–96.

²⁴ Ibid., 96; he analyzes the relation between the veneration of icons and Christological dogma at 89–90.

²⁵ See Ibid., 96–97.

²⁶ Tillich suggests that in Western thought, too, existentialism is a necessary complement to essentialism. Here he admits that there were three determinant influences for him: the Platonic-Augustinian tradition, from which he borrowed the participatory theory that enabled him to understand how the finite can participate in the infinite; Hegel's philosophy of Absolute Spirit, which enabled him (Tillich) to speak about the spiritual foundation (essence) of philosophy and our participation in it; and existentialists, whose reaction against Hegel provided Tillich with the second, dynamic pole of dialectics—with what is unquantifiable. See Tillich, Paul, “Philosophical Background of My Theology (1960),” in Main Works 1: Philosophical Writings (ed. Wenz, Gunter; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1989) 411–20, esp. 414–15Google Scholar. Tillich criticizes Eastern theology for its utopically understood theological anthropology, which works with the concept of “innocence” as “non-actualized potentiality.” According to Tillich, this is saying that before the fall, Adam was equal to Christ. For Tillich, this is an absurdity in Eastern thought, which makes the fall incomprehensible. “Mere potentiality or dreaming innocence is not perfection. Only the conscious union of existence and essence is perfection, as God is perfect because he transcends essence and existence.” Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology II (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957) 33–34 Google Scholar (italics in original).

²⁷ Tillich, Systematic Theology III, 298.

²⁸ See Tillich, Paul, “The Dynamics of Faith (1957),” in Main Works 5: Writings on Religion (ed. Scharlemann, Robert P.; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1988) 231–90Google Scholar; “The Religious Symbol / Symbol and Knowledge (1940–41),” in Main Works 4: Writings in the Philosophy of Religion (ed. John Clayton; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1987) 253–72; “Oprávnění a význam náboženských symbolů,” Theologická Revue 20 (1987) 109–15; “Existenciální analýza a náboženské symboly,” Theologická Revue 21 (1988) 179–88.

²⁹ Tillich, Systematic Theology III, 396 (italics in original). Tillich's eschatology includes classical themes such as the ultimate destiny of the world and of each human person. His main emphasis, however, is not on the final stages of history; he rather concentrates on what he sees as eternal, and eternally transformative. See ibid., 361, 395, 398. Štefan points out that in Tillich's eschatology, his Lutheran understanding of participation in the redemption of Jesus Christ meets “eschatological pan-en-theism,” where Tillich explains the theological term apokatastasis (from which he eventually distances himself) using Schelling's philosophical term “essentification.” Redemption that exists fully “only within the Kingdom of God, which comprises the universe,” means at the same time “a creative synthesis of a being's essential nature with what it has made of it in its temporal existence,” or more accurately, to accept—in despair over what it did not manage to make and over its estrangement from its essential nature—the grace that “conquers sin . . . and bridges the gulf of estrangement.” We can also, according to Tillich, perceive this synthesis in phenomena of which Protestantism is suspicious, such as depictions of the image of Christ, the apostles, or the saints in icons, or the practices of Catholic folk religion connected with belief in purgatory. See Štefan, Karl Barth a ti druzí, 359–60, 366, 371; Here Štefan cites Tillich, Systematic Theology III, 421; I, 147; III, 401; The Shaking of the Foundations (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962) 163.

³⁰ See Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, 138.

³¹ See n. 20 above. Tillich's accounts of what a mystical experience might mean are complex. They range from participation in the reality to which Christian tradition refers, especially in its Augustinian/Franciscan/realist expressions, and about which we have spoken in relation to Tillich's approach to images, to the vague mysticism that Štefan justly criticizes when demonstrating how Tillich's apologetics developed from an emphasis on the justification of the sinner–doubter in the 1920’s, to the reinterpretation of faith as “the courage to be” in the 1950’s, and how, initially through a jumble of dialectic relations, and subsequently through vague mysticism which transcended theism, his theological statements gradually lost their sense of Christian specificity. See Štefan, Karl Barth a ti druzí, 349–51. And yet, even what is criticized as vague mysticism has its grounds in Tillich's theology. He goes back to German mystical writers, especially to Friedrich Schelling and Jakob Böhme, from whom he takes the feeling for the depth of the divine life, but also the emphasis on the spiritual unity perceptible through the principle of Logos. See Carl E. Braaten, “Paul Tillich and the Classical Christian Tradition,” in Tillich, A History of Christian Thought xiii-xlii, esp. xxix.

³² See Tillich, The Dynamics of Faith, 236–37.

³³ See Tillich, A History of Christian Thought, 139–40.

³⁴ Tillich, “Art and Ultimate Reality (1960),” 323.

³⁵ Ibid., 320–21.

³⁶ Tillich addressed both the ritual-metaphysical form of utopia, in which the particular grasping of the good, which is more whole and more perfect than that which people find in their surroundings, was situated into our world, and, in more detail, the ethical-political form. Here Tillich relates utopia to the totalitarian systems of Nazism and communism, but we will also find elements of it in his understanding of religious socialism. See Paul Tillich, “Eschatologie und Geschichte (1927),” in Main Works 6, 107–25; he deals critically with political utopia in his “Politische Bedeutung der Utopie im Leben der Völker (1951),” in Main Works 3, 531–82.

³⁷ See Tillich, The Dynamics of Faith, 236–37.

³⁸ See Tillich, Systematic Theology III, 184.

³⁹ See Blane, Andrew, Georges Florovsky: Russian Intellectual, Orthodox Churchman (ed. Blane, Andrew; Crestwood: St. Vladimir‘s Seminary Press, 1993) 114 Google Scholar. Matthew Baker kindly pointed out to me that Florovsky and Tillich already knew each other from when Tillich was at Union Theological Seminary and Florovsky at St. Vladimir's Seminary. Florovsky taught some classes on the iconoclast controversy as part of Tillich's course on Church History.

⁴⁰ Tillich accepted a professorship at Harvard in 1954 and lectured on Protestant theology there between 1955 and 1962. Florovsky arrived in 1956 and stayed until 1964. The six years when they both lectured at the Harvard Divinity School coincided with a time when the Harvard president, Nathan Pusey, aspired towards cooperation between the main streams of Christian tradition. Roman Catholicism was represented by Christopher Dawson, an English convert who was concerned with the history of European culture and education. See Blane, Georges Florovsky, 37–114.

⁴¹ According to Florovsky, “The knowledge of the past is necessarily indirect and inferential. It is always an interpretation.” The first rule of good interpretation, then, is that “we have to grasp the mind of the writer; we must discover exactly what he intended to say.” Understanding is not possible without a certain degree of “intellectual or spiritual sympathy,” but it is not a “real meeting of minds.” An historical approach to tradition is not existential in the sense of experiential participation in what we interpret, but in the sense of a “knowledge of subjects—of ‘co-persons,’ of ‘co-partners’ in the quest of life.” See Florovsky, Georges, “The Predicament of the Church Historian,” in Religion and Culture. Essays in Honor of Paul Tillich (ed. Leibrecht, Walter; New York: Harper, 1959) 140–66Google Scholar, esp. 143–47, 150 (italics in original).

⁴² Ibid., 164.

⁴³ See ibid., 163.

⁴⁴ See Williams, George H., “The Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky,” in Georges Florovsky (ed. Blane) 287–340Google Scholar, esp. 319. This does not mean that Florovsky would offer any systematic treatment of the scriptural texts. He approaches the Bible as a coherent record of divine revelation in history, reaching its climax when “the Word was made flesh.” This sacred history, sealed when “the Comforter descended into the world for its cleansing and sanctification” continues in the church up until now, according to Florovsky. See Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Church Historian,” 164. Referring to Hilary of Poitiers, as well as to Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Athanasius, and Basil, Florovsky describes tradition in terms of a comprehensive understanding of the Scriptures. Tradition is, for him, primarily a “prescribed usage” and a “formal doctrine” (credal statements, for example) where the Fathers were all in accord, as they discerned the “ecclesial sense” against Gnostics, Arians, and others who reduced Scripture to proof-texts of their positions. Tradition is a catholic synthesis, and the function of tradition is to preserve the sound interpretation of Scripture against its misuse, and thus to pass on the apostolic faith and practice. This was embodied in Christian Hellenism, and continues as the Holy Spirit breathes in the Church. See Florovsky, “The Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church,” GOTR 9 (1963) 181–200.

⁴⁵ See Bauerová, Kateřina, “Zkušenost a teologie ruských emigrantů,” in Noble, Ivana et al., Cesty pravoslavné teologie na Západ (Brno: CDK, 2012) 259–96, esp. 284–93Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ The concept of hesychasm, referring to the spiritual tradition stemming from the Desert Fathers, comes from the Greek hesuchía, which means stillness, silence, peace. The hesychasts were people who sought for the life of prayer and attention to God in silence, who embraced specific physical and mental ways of uniting their powers on ascending into their hearts, understood as centers of the human person, and of invocation of the name of Jesus, while journeying towards full union with God. The first hesychasts appeared in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt in the fourth century. Hesychasm then experienced a revival in Byzantium in the first half of the fourteenth century. Its name comes from Mount Athos, and its teaching and practice were systematized and defended by the monk and later bishop of Thessalonica, Gregory Palamas (ca. 1296–1359).

⁴⁷ The early concept of sophiology comes from Vladimir Solovyov. He referred to his mystical experience of an encounter and conversation with Holy Wisdom—Sophia—whom he saw as the integral organic and sense-giving principle of the cosmos. After his conversion to Christianity, Solovyov re-worked this experience into a philosophical-theological system, which mixed concepts taken from Platonism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, and from the Greek church fathers. His insights were further developed by Sergei Bulgakov, Nikolai Lossky, and Pavel Florensky. For more detail, see Bauerová, “Zkušenost a teologie ruských emigrant,” 284–93.

⁴⁸ See Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Church Historian,” 164–65.

⁴⁹ See Florovsky, George, Пути Русского Богословия, “Предисловие автора” [The Ways of Russian Theology, “Author's Preface”] (Paris: YMCA Press, 1937)Google Scholar, http://www.vehi.net/florovsky/puti/index.html; Florovsky borrowed the term “pseudomorphosis” from the biologist Oswald Spengler. See Louth, Andrew, “Is Development of Doctrine a Valid Category for Orthodox Theology?” in Orthodoxy and Western Culture: Collection of Essays Honoring Jaroslav Pelikan on his Eightieth Birthday (ed. Hotchkiss, Valerie and Henry, Patrick; Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2005) 45–63 Google Scholar, esp. 46.

⁵⁰ I am grateful for the comments of Matthew Baker, who defends Florovsky's attitude to the ascetic and Hesychast tradition even in the West and points to the studies from the 1930s dedicated to St. Seraphim of Sarov and St. Paissy Velichkovsky in Puti Russkogo Bogosloviia and to his unpublished lecture on Nil Sorsky. Florovsky also wrote the preface to the first English edition of Archimandrite Sophrony (Shakarov), The Undistorted Image: Staretz Silouan 1866–1938 (London: Faith Press, 1958). Baker also refers to an interview in Russian with Paul Valliere, in which he talked about visiting Florovsky in the 1970’s at Princeton and asking him what to read in order to understand Orthodox theology. Florovsky replied simply: “Read Silouan.” See personal correspondence with Matthew Baker, 23 June 2014. See also Ivana Noble, “Ruské pravoslaví vstupující do moderní doby,” in Ivana Noble et al., Cesty pravoslavné teologie, 73–107, esp. 85–90.

⁵¹ Florovsky writes: “Christianity is an eschatological religion and, for that very reason, is essentially historical.” Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Church Historian,” 161 (italics in original). And yet, against historical absolutizations, whether Marxist, Liberal, or papal Catholic, Williams reminds us, Florovsky stressed eschatology. Florovsky understands the eschaton, like creation, literally, as a meta-historical event. The final judgment of humankind and the universal perfection of humanity in the new creation are his Christian counterpart of hyper-historical utopianism. In his expositions of eschatology Florovsky refers mainly to Origen, Methodius of Olympus, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, and Nicholas Cabasilas. See Williams, “The Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky,” 290, 294.

⁵² See Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Church Historian,” 151, 155, 157; A very similar argument occurs in his lecture at the First Congress of Orthodox Theology in Athens in 1936, “Patristics and Modern Theology.” See advance proof copy from The Acts of the First Congress of Orthodox Theology, Athens, 1936 (Athens: Pyros, 1938) 1-7. In his letter of December 12, 1963 to Dobbie-Bateman, Florovsky writes: “The ‘authority’ of the Fathers is not a dictatus papae. They are guides and witnesses, no more. Their vision is ‘of authority,’ not necessarily their words” (italics in original). See Gallaher, Brandon, “Georges Florovsky on reading the life of St. Seraphim,” Sobornost 27 (2005) 58–70, esp. 62Google Scholar; see Ross J. Sauvé, Georges V. Florovsky and Vladimir N. Lossky: An Exploration, Comparison and Demonstration of Their Unique Approaches to the Neopatristic Synthesis (Ph.D. diss., Durham University, 2010) 70.

⁵³ But it is not “a subjective re-orientation of man in time,” but that “in the light of Christ's coming, history now appears as a ‘pro-gress,’ inwardly ordered toward ‘the end,’ to which it unfailingly precipitates.” Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Church Historian,” 162, 161 (italics in original).

⁵⁴ Florovsky places Scripture into tradition, especially into the context of liturgical and sacramental life. For Florovsky, only in this context of the community of the true faith and proper liturgical practice was it possible to interpret Scripture correctly. See Florovsky, “The Function of Tradition in the Ancient Church,” in The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky I: Bible, Church, Tradition (Belmont, MA: Norland, 1972) 73–92, esp. 77, 84, 86, 89.

⁵⁵ Florovsky ascribes to patristic thought not only normativity but also an existential character, which, according to Ross Sauvé, consists in his “vision of faith” and “spiritual comprehension” that leads to an “encounter with the Living Christ,” in which lies the sense of the Orthodox understanding of tradition, which would otherwise be “spiritually irrelevant.” See Sauvé, Georges V. Florovsky and Vladimir N. Lossky, 68–69.

⁵⁶ See Florovsky, Georges, “Patristic Theology and the Ethos of the Orthodox Church,” in The Collected Works of Georges Florovsky IV: Aspects of Church History (Belmont, MA: Norland, 1975) 11–30 Google Scholar, esp. 18. See Sauvé, Georges V. Florovsky and Vladimir N. Lossky, 69.

⁵⁷ See Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology,” 7. In a previous paper, co-authored with my husband, we showed that Florovsky enables the appropriation of this claim in Latin Christianity. See Ivana and Noble, Tim, “A Latin Appropriation of Christian Hellenism: Florovsky's Marginal Note to Patristics and Modern Theology and its Possible Addressee,” SVTQ 56 (2012) 269–87Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ See Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology,” 5.

⁵⁹ See Kalaitzidis, Pantelis, “Return to the Fathers and Modern Orthodox Theology,” SVTQ 54 (2010) 5–36 Google Scholar, esp. 8–11.

⁶⁰ Florovsky, “Patristics and Modern Theology,” 5.

⁶¹ See Florovsky, Пути Русского Богословия, “Предисловие автора;” in English, Florovsky, Georges, Ways of Russian Theology I (Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1979)Google Scholar xviii.

⁶² I have explored this subject in detail in previous papers. See Noble, Ivana, “History Tied Down by the Normativity of Tradition? Inversion of Perspective in Orthodox Theology: Challenges and Problems,” in Tradition and the Normativity of History (ed. Boeve, Lieven and Merrigan, Terrence; Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 263; Louvain: Peeters, 2013) 283–96Google Scholar; eadem, “Patristic Synthesis or Non-Synthetic Dialectics? A Critical Evaluation of John Meyendorff's Contribution,” in L'héritage du Père Jean Meyendorff: érudit et homme d'Eglise (1926–1992) (ed. Joost van Rossum and Goran Sekulovski; Paris: YMCA, forthcoming).

⁶³ George H. Williams remarks that “originally Florovsky spoke of ‘the patristic synthesis’ of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Period in contrast to the ‘ambiguity of the third century.’” “Neo-patristic synthesis,” the term Florovsky uses more often in ecumenical dialogues, refers primarily to “a reworking of the Fathers from the fourth through the eighth centuries” and overlaps with his term “Christian Hellenism.” See Williams, “The Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky,” in Georges Florovsky (ed. Blane), 287–340, esp. 291–92, referring to Florovsky, ‘Томление духа,’ Путь 10 [1930] 102–7.

⁶⁴ Compare with Florovsky's criticism of Hegelianism in Sauvé, Georges V. Florovsky and Vladimir N. Lossky, 72–77.

⁶⁵ This is in contrast to Tillich, who criticized Hegel's philosophy of history for subordinating history to an artificially created system. Tillich says: “History has also been subordinated to the system which Hegel has construed. The elements of the eternal which the philosopher knows appear in history. They are present in the mind of the philosopher, and so the philosopher knows what history is. Now this is, I would call it with a Greek word—hybris—philosophical arrogance because history always transcends anything we know; it has in itself the element of the incalculable, of the merely existential.” Tillich, “Philosophical Background of My Theology,” 415 (italics in original).

⁶⁶ See Georges Florovsky, “St. Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers,” in Collected Works I, 105–20.

⁶⁷ When Congar came to Paris in January 1932 to complete his studies, he joined a French–Russian circle that used to meet in Berdyaev's home in Clamart, where Orthodox and Catholics discussed theological and philosophical questions and shared their existentially and spiritually relevant versions of a “return to the roots,” which meant, for Maritain and Gilson, for example, a return from neo-scholasticism to Thomas Aquinas or to the church fathers. See von Aretin, K. O., The Papacy and the Modern World (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1970) 231 Google Scholar; Aradi, Z., John XXIII: Pope of the Council (London: Burns and Oates, 1961) 144 Google Scholar. There is a more extensive treatment of the lectures in Martin Warner, “Nicolas Berdyaev: A Consideration of His Thought and Influence,” (Ph.D. diss., Durham University, 1986) 188; until 1928, Protestants were also part of this circle, but when the Roman Catholic hierarchy banned it, and it moved underground, they ceased to belong to it. See Noble, Tim, “Springtime in Paris: Orthodoxy Encountering Diverse Others Between the Wars,” in Den Blick Weiten: Wenn Ökumene die Religionen begegnet; Tagungsbericht der 17. Wissenschaftlichen Konsultation der Societas Oecumenica (ed. Pierce, Andrew and Schuegraf, Oliver; Beiheft zur Ökumenischen Rundschau 99; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2014)Google Scholar; see Berdyaev, Nicolas, Dream and Reality: An Essay in Autobiography (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1950) 163 Google Scholar; Lowrie, Donald, Rebellious Prophet: A Life of Nicolai Berdyaev (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960) 200 Google Scholar; Blane, Georges Florovsky, 54–55. As a Dominican priest, Congar participated in Life and Work in Oxford in 1937 (which Tillich also attended), and Faith and Order in Edinburgh in 1938 (where he again met Florovsky), both of which predated the founding of the World Council of Churches. See Stransky, Tom, “Yves Congar,” in Dictionary of the Ecumenical Movement (ed. Lossky, Nicholas et al.; Geneva: WCC, 2002) 241–42Google Scholar.

⁶⁸ On 13 February 1948, Florovsky wrote an official letter to Congar, making this request. The Geneva office (W. A. Visser ‘t Hooft) supported Congar's participation, but it was ultimately disallowed following intervention from Rome. See Famerée, Joseph, “Orthodox Influence on the Roman Catholic Theologian Yves Congar, O. P.: A Sketch,” STVQ 39 (1995) 409–16Google Scholar, esp. 413–14; see Congar, Yves, Une passion: l'unité: Réflexions et souvenirs 1929-1973 (Paris: Cerf, 1974) 65–71 Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Pius XI charged the Dominicans at the Russian Seminary of St. Basil with the formation of Uniate clergy and with the task of educating them in Russian religious culture. In Paris, where Congar moved in 1932 to finish his studies, he met Berdyaev's circle, to which Florovsky belonged, and also Lev Gillet, a Roman Catholic priest who converted to Orthodoxy. At the Institut Catholique, he attended courses on Khomyakov and the Slavophile movement and came into contact with Dom Lambert Beauduin and through him with the monastery of Amay (later Chevetogne) in Belgium, where both the Western and Eastern (Uniate) liturgies and forms of monasticism were practiced alongside each other and where the journal Irénikon was published. Congar also participated in the annual “French-Russian recollections” at which students of different confessions used to meet during Pentecost. Congar lectured publicly and took part in debates at both the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute and the Federation of Protestant Students, from where, in 1937, his book Chrétiens désunis emerged. See Congar, Une passion, 11; see Destivelle, Hyacinthe, “Le Père Congar et l'Orthodoxie Russe: Un Dialogue de Vérité,” Bulletin de Littérature Ecclésiastique 106 (2005) 377–400 Google Scholar; Famerée, “Orthodox Influence,” 409–11; Fouilloux, Les Catholiques et l'unité chrétienne, 218–31.

⁷⁰ See Congar, Yves, “Eglise de Pierre, Eglise de Paul, Eglise de Jean: Destin d'un thème oecuménique,” in The Ecumenical World of Orthodox Civilization (ed. Florovsky, Georges, Blane, Andrew, and Bird, Thomas; Russia and Orthodoxy 3; The Hague: Mouton, 1974) 163–79Google Scholar, esp. 163, 165.

⁷¹ Ibid., 165.

⁷² Congar analyzes these elements using the sources from which they arose. One of these was the influence of the twelfth-century mystic, Joachim of Fiore, which then came via Lessing to the Slavophiles. Joachim's concept of three ages, of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, suggests that the age of the Spirit has now dawned, during which spiritual people will live a higher form of unity, and in which the old divisions and dependency on institutions will be overcome. From Schelling then comes the conviction about the transitory forms of Catholicism and Protestantism (the Churches of Peter and Paul respectively), which would be superseded by the Church of John. See ibid., 165–67.

⁷³ See ibid., 172–73. Congar already had a rich experience of Uniatism from his time as a student. See nn. 68 and 70 above.

⁷⁴ See Is 49:10, 11. Congar does not quote the reference but paraphrases it. See “Eglise de Pierre, Eglise de Paul, Eglise de Jean,” 173.

⁷⁵ Ibid., 173.

⁷⁶ Gabriel Flynn points out that Congar's treatment of eschatology is less developed than his notions of tradition, his ecclesiology, and pneumatology. And yet, the appeal to eschatology enables him to relate together the permanent and the provisional. According to Flynn, Congar, by affirming at the same time attributes between which there is a tension, is able to construct a dialectical approach that does not end up in a synthesis. Thus he upholds at the same time the holiness and the need for reform, the presence of the Kingdom of God already and the waiting for and working towards the glory of its reign. See Flynn, Gabriel, Yves Congar's Vision of the Church in a World of Unbelief (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004) 179 Google Scholar.

⁷⁷ This is composed of two parts, initially published separately. See Congar, Yves, La tradition et les traditions I: Essai historique (Paris: Fayard, 1960)Google Scholar; La tradition et les traditions II: Essai théologique (Paris: Fayard, 1963). The first part, “Essai historique,” had been written, in its first edition, by 1958, a time when Congar was prohibited from lecturing publicly and from meeting with Protestants; it was revised two years later when Pope John XXIII rehabilitated him and invited him into the preparatory commission for the Second Vatican Council. The second part, “Essai théologique,” followed in 1963, during the time of the Council. In it we find attitudes that are also, under Congar's influence, reflected in conciliar documents relating to the understanding of revelation, religious freedom, mission, ecumenism, and the church's role in the modern world. See Pesch, Otto Hermann, Druhý vatikánský koncil 1962–1965: Příprava, průběh, odkaz (Praha: Vyšehrad, 1996) 135, 145–46Google Scholar, 174, 309, 318, 376–77.

⁷⁸ See Congar, La tradition et les traditions II, 28, 207. Although Congar says here that “tradition is a synthesis comprising documents and realities that come from the life of the Spirit,” by synthesis he does not mean harmonization into one new totality that will overcome the tensions and contrasts of both poles of the dialectic. See ibid., 213.

⁷⁹ See Rom 8:26.

⁸⁰ Congar writes that the Spirit is the transcendent subject of tradition: not only a principle but also a person. See La tradition et les traditions II, 101–8. John Webster criticizes Congar for identifying the Spirit so closely with tradition that its transcendence is in fact suppressed. See Webster, John, “Plurality and Plenitude: Evangelical Reflections on Congar's Tradition and Traditions ,” in Yves Congar: Theologian of the Church (ed. Flynn, Gabriel; Louvain: Peeters, 2005) 43–65 Google Scholar, esp. 63.

⁸¹ See Congar, Yves, “Langage des Spirituels et langage des Théologiens,” in Situation et tâches présentes de la Théologie (Paris: Cerf, 1967) 135–58Google Scholar, esp. 142. The text is from 1961.

⁸² For more detail, see Groppe, Elisabeth Teresa, Yves Congar's Theology of the Holy Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 97 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸³ See, for example, Webster, “Plurality and Plenitude,” 63.

⁸⁴ See Congar, Yves, Je crois en l‘Esprit Saint I-III (Paris: Cerf, 1979–1980)Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ Groppe shows that in the 1970s and 1980s, Congar spoke about the dual establishment of the church, through Christ and through the Spirit, but that at the same time he partly reserved space for the “free sector” of the Spirit, which he earlier described as the “autonomous Spirit's activity,” and which was now more a part of the work of Trinity, but cannot be reduced to the work of the other two Persons. See Groppe, Yves Congar's Theology of the Holy Spirit, 74.

⁸⁶ Congar, Je Crois en l'Esprit Saint II, 28.

⁸⁷ See Phil 2:6-11.

⁸⁸ See Groppe, Yves Congar's Theology of the Holy Spirit, 9, 57; see also 1 Cor 14:45.

⁸⁹ The Spirit's operation independent of and outside church structures is mentioned in Congar's early and later works. See Congar, Yves, “Le Saint-Esprit et le corps apostolique, réalisateurs de l‘oeuvre du Christ,” Revue de Sciences Philosophiques et Theologiques 36 (1952) 613–25Google Scholar; “Le Christ dans l’économie salutaire et dans nos traités dogmatique,” Concilium 2 (1966) 11–26, esp. 24; see Groppe, Yves Congar's Theology of the Holy Spirit, 74.

⁹⁰ I am grateful to my husband, Tim Noble, for this observation.