Patristic theology, as it figures across the depth-psychology and Orthodox intellectual corpus, is not primarily a historical discipline but a living hermeneutical programme — a claim that the writings of the Church Fathers constitute not merely antiquarian testimony but an inexhaustible source of spiritual and doctrinal renewal. The corpus reveals three distinguishable orientations. First, the neo-patristic synthesis, associated above all with Georges Florovsky and Vladimir Lossky, insists that authentic Orthodox thought must be anchored in the patristic phronema — the mind of the Fathers — understood as the normative horizon of all theological creativity. Second, a liturgical-patristic convergence, represented by Alexander Schmemann and such Greek thinkers as John Zizioulas and Ioannis Foundoulis, reads the Fathers through the lens of liturgical practice, treating the Divine Liturgy as patristics enacted. Third, a sophiological trajectory, associated with Bulgakov, Florensky, and Evdokimov, presses beyond what strict patristic synthesis permits, drawing on Jungian psychology and the figure of Sophia in ways that the neo-patristic programme explicitly rejects. The tension between retrieval and creative appropriation — between fidelity to the Fathers and their transformation into contemporary vision — constitutes the animating dialectic of the entire field. John of Damascus stands as the paradigmatic systematiser through whom patristic consensus is crystallised, while Zizioulas and Romanides represent the twentieth century’s most contested attempts at genuinely Greek patristic renewal.
the patristic corpus of writings is not only an inviolable treasure-trove of tradition. For tradition is life; and the traditions are really being preserved only in their living reproduction and empathy
This passage articulates the foundational neo-patristic conviction that the Fathers are not a static archive but a living source of theological renewal, to be reproduced creatively rather than merely cited.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentthesis
Theology of patristic renewal: Metropolitan John of Pergamon (Zizioulas) and Fr John Romanides
This passage explicitly names and frames ‘theology of patristic renewal’ as the organising category for the twentieth-century Greek theological movement, gathering Zizioulas and Romanides under a single programmatic umbrella.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentthesis
It is manifestly an exercise in the ‘neo-patristic synthesis’, whether Lossky himself thought in these terms or not.
This passage identifies Lossky’s Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church as the paradigm case of neo-patristic synthesis and credits Myrrha Lot-Borodine with opening Catholic scholars to the Fathers as a living theological resource.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentthesis
the theologians of the neo-patristic synthesis — Florovsky, Lossky, Lot-Borodine — were friendly with and owed much to the theologians of what Catholic theologians nowadays call the movement of Ressourcement
This passage establishes that the Orthodox neo-patristic synthesis and the Catholic Ressourcement movement were in creative dialogue, sharing the common impetus of returning to patristic sources as a corrective to scholastic and pietistic distortions.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentthesis
for all his talk of the patristic phronema, he is well aware of differences between the Fathers, and seems to regard this diversity as richness, rather than a difficulty to be ignored
This passage nuances the neo-patristic programme by noting that Florovsky’s appeal to the patristic phronema did not flatten the internal diversity of patristic witnesses but treated that diversity as theologically fertile.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentthesis
the patristic sources that Florovsky uses are wide-ranging, and focused on Athanasios and the Cappadocians; it is this, I think, that anchors his theology in the mystery of Christ
This passage argues that Florovsky’s selective concentration on Athanasius and the Cappadocians gives his patristic theology its Christological specificity, distinguishing it from the more speculative sophiological alternatives.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentsupporting
their dogmatic theologies can be seen as attempts to articulate a patristic vision in today’s world — they are both, then, exemplars of the ‘neo-patristic synthesis’
This passage extends the neo-patristic category to the Romanian and Serbian theological traditions, arguing that Dumitru Stăniloae and Justin Popović represent patristic renewal as a pan-Orthodox, not merely Russian-émigré, project.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentsupporting
the star of the ‘grand old man’ of Orthodox theology has declined over the decades, and far more attention has been paid recently to thinkers such as Fr Pavel Florensky and Fr Sergii Bulgakov, whose approach to theology Florovsky had deplored
This passage registers the historiographical reversal whereby the neo-patristic synthesis of Florovsky has lost prestige relative to the sophiological theologies he explicitly opposed, raising the question of whether patristic theology can absorb speculative creativity.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentsupporting
Theology can be catholic only in Hellenism
This passage presents Florovsky’s controversial thesis that Orthodox theology is constitutively Hellenic, so that departure from the Greek patristic framework amounts to departure from catholicity itself.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentsupporting
The Fathers typically argue that the philosophers, for all of the theoretical achievements, could not fully actualize their noble theoretical teachings.
This passage situates patristic theology in relation to ancient philosophy, showing how the Fathers appropriated pagan moral philosophy while insisting that only Christ and the saints fully realised the life philosophy could only describe.
, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Dimensions, Directions, 2021supporting
Gregory of Nazianzus opposed Athanasius’ formulation that God had generated the Son by necessity and not voluntarily, on the basis of the Plotinian notion of prohairesis.
This passage illustrates how patristic theologians navigated Platonic philosophical categories in refining Trinitarian doctrine, showing that the Fathers’ engagement with Hellenism was critical and transformative rather than merely receptive.
, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity, 1982supporting
Theology of patristic renewal: Metropolitan John of Pergamon (Zizioulas) and Fr John Romanides
This bibliographic entry confirms the formal academic designation of a chapter devoted to patristic renewal theology, signalling its status as a recognised sub-field within modern Orthodox thought.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentaside
Evdokimov is one of the few who will continue to think through the sophianic ideas of Bulgakov (again drawing on Jung, to whose sophiological notions his attention had been drawn by the authority on Sufism, Henry Corbin)
This passage illustrates a trajectory that extends beyond strict patristic theology into sophiology and Jungian psychology, marking the outer boundary of what the neo-patristic programme was willing to sanction.
, Modern Orthodox Thinkers: From the Philokalia to the Presentaside