Although Alexander Chow’s book is four years old, we are pleased to publish this review to bring his work on theosis to the attention of as widespread an Orthodox theological and scholarly audience as possible. This serves as a prelude to Michael Reardon’s own upcoming article for Orthodoxy in Dialogue, “The Orthodox Invasion: Theosis as the Telos of Protestant Soteriology.” 

Theosis, Sino-Christian Theology and the Second Chinese Enlightenment: Heaven and Humanity in Unity
Alexander Chow
New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2013

Alexander Chow’s Theosis, Sino-Christian Theology and the Second Chinese Enlightenment is an innovative and compelling attempt at utilizing an Eastern Orthodox framework to construct a contextual Chinese Christian theology. Largely successful in his endeavor, Chow’s much-needed inquiry into the potential for a Sino-Christian theosis-centered theology has him playing the role of Pandora opening a box with which Sino-Christian scholars will be forced to engage in the coming years. 

His project is comprised of three sections. In the first section (introduction and chapter 1), he details the two “Enlightenments” through which China has passed: the first at the turn of the 20^th century, and the second in the 1980s. This latter Enlightenment provides the historical context for his constructive endeavor (pp. 21-40).

Chow also introduces the theological typology that will be employed in his study. He eschews two common representations of Sino-theology—fundamentalist/modernist and Confucian Activist/Daoist Pietistic dichotomies—in favor of the trichotomistic typology promulgated by Justo Gonzales (pp. 3-10). “Type A” theologies are defined as “law-based” theologies, which are generally counter-cultural or transformative in nature and have negative anthropologies (p. 9). “Type B” theologies prioritize the synthesis of philosophy with religion (i.e., philosophy as the “handmaiden of theology”), are favorable toward cultural assimilation, and possess positive anthropologies (p. 10). “Type C” theologies are concerned with history as unfolding God’s purpose, favor cultural engagement, and have mixed anthropologies (p. 10). Of these three, Chow posits that Type C theologies are both the most ideal in creating a contextual Chinese theology and the theological typology of Orthodox thought.  Read More

St. Francis of Assisi and St. Macrina the Younger

While separated by over 800 years, St. Macrina the Younger (324-379) and St. Francis of Assisi (1182 -1226) have surprisingly similar descriptions of marks left on their bodies and made known upon their deaths. St. Francis’ wounds—the marks of the stigmata on his hands, feet, and side—are much more commonly known and written about. Less well known is the scar left on St. Macrina’s side from a tumor healed miraculously by prayers with her mother.

While hagiographies abound describing the wounds suffered by martyrs at their deaths, far less common are hagiographical accounts in which miraculous wounds from earlier in a saint’s life are revealed upon his or her death. This article will limit its focus to the accounts describing these wounds in Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Macrina and Thomas of Celano’s writings on the life of St. Francis. Read More

We are sharing Father Alexander Schmemann’s brief 1966 commentary as a springboard for frank, brotherly dialogue between Roman Catholics, Eastern Catholics, and Orthodox. What relevance do his remarks continue to have, or not, more than half a century later? How do we respond, in particular, to the ongoing concerns of the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Churches on these complex issues?

Language that some may find offensive or outdated should be considered from the vantage of the era in which this response was written.

It is not easy for an Orthodox to express his views on this particular Decree for the simple yet important reason that the very existence of the “Uniate” Eastern Catholic Churches has always been considered by the Orthodox as one of the major obstacles to any sincere theological confrontation with the Roman Catholic Church.

The Orthodox appreciate, to be sure, the efforts made in these last years by some spiritual leaders of these communities to represent and voice within the Roman Catholic Church the Eastern tradition as a whole, efforts which were especially obvious at the Council itself and which no doubt greatly contributed to the basic orientation of the present Decree. But for the sake of true ecumenical understanding, it must be stressed that for the Orthodox there remains in this whole question of uniatism a deep ambiguity, to which all Orthodox are extremely sensitive and which must have a high priority on the ecumenical agenda of the future.

There can be no doubt as to the positive, irenic, and constructive intentions of the Decree as a whole. It is one more step, and a decisive one, toward the recognition of the Eastern tradition as “equal in dignity” to that of the West. Of utmost importance is its emphasis on the temporary character of its provisions— “until such time as the Catholic Church and the separated Eastern Churches come together into complete unity.” This seems to indicate a rather significant shift in the very understanding of the function of the Eastern Catholic communities called now to serve as bridges to, rather than substitutes for, the Orthodox East. Read More

Those who remember the hostility between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches prior to the 1964 meeting between His All-Holiness, Athenagoras I and His Holiness, Blessed Paul VI—and even those of us who have only heard of it via history—must acknowledge that the evolution of the relationship between the two Churches in the years since has been nothing short of remarkable.

Still, despite what His Beatitude Sviatoslav, Major Archbishop of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, referred to last year as a “positive” change of emphasis in interaction, it is clear that an atmosphere of  mistrust still remains.  

Take, for example, the fact that  Orthodox Archpriest Leonid Kishkovsky felt the need to clarify that the Orthodox had not accepted papal primacy after the 2007 Ravenna Dialogue; or, that Catholic Father Mark Drew’s 2017 article on the 2016 statement of the Joint Orthodox-Catholic Commission for Theological Dialogue, while painting a balanced and nuanced picture of the Catholic positions, described the Orthodox position as talk of Rome “abandoning her errors and returning to Orthodoxy.” Read More