Introducing
Eastern Orthodox Theology
Andrew Louth
SPCK £12.99
(978-0-281-06965-1)
Church Times Bookshop £11.70 (Use
code CT449 )
FOR many years, the standard
introduction to the Orthodox Church has been Timothy (now
Metropolitan Kallistos) Ware's The Orthodox Church. In his
guide to further reading, Andrew Louth commends this book as a more
formal introduction to Eastern Orthodox theology. His own book he
describes as a personal, more informal account, whose origin was in
lectures given at the Amsterdam Centre for Eastern Orthodox
Theology, where he is Visiting Professor.
A former Anglican priest,
now Professor Emeritus of Patristic and Byzantine Studies at Durham
University, Dr Louth introduces readers to a Christian tradition
into which he has deeply entered, and of which his exposition is at
once scholarly, lively, and appealing.
After a brief introduction
explaining who the Orthodox are, he calls his first chapter
"Thinking and doing, being and praying", and makes it clear that he
understands an introduction to Eastern Orthodox theology as an
introduction to a way of life. Throughout the book, in which he
writes about the fundamental doctrines of Orthodoxy, he insists
that theology as an exercise in intellectual understanding cannot
be separated from prayer and worship, and from growth in a
relationship with God whose goal is deification.
So in his exposition he
draws as much on liturgical texts as on scripture, the Fathers, and
modern Orthodox theologians. At the heart of Orthodox theology, he
is clear, is an engagement with God, a commitment to a way of
thinking, living, and praying. Theology has to be rooted in
experience.
This conviction runs through
Louth's presentation of the doctrines of God as Trinity, creation,
the person of Jesus Christ, sin, death and repentance, being human
in the image of God in the Church, sacraments and icons, time and
the liturgy, and the last things and eternal life. These, are of
course, the doctrines for the most part fundamental to all the
historic Christian traditions. Yet the Eastern Orthodox tradition
understands them in a way that distinguishes Eastern Orthodoxy from
any Western presentation of Christianity. The distinction is
perhaps not absolute: in recent decades Orthodox theology has had a
significant influence among Western Christians of various
traditions.
Louth's book is an
attractive and accessible introduction to Eastern Orthodoxy for
those who want to make its first acquaintance, while readers
familiar with the Orthodox tradition will gain fresh insights from
this admirable personal presentation.
Canon Hugh Wybrew was formerly Vicar of St Mary Magdalen's,
Oxford, and Catechist of Exeter College.