A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt

While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson

Theological Disambiguations

An Unconventional Handbook of Orthodox Theology

by Rev. Vladan Perisic

Foreword
by Fr John Behr

It is a great pleasure to see this work published, making available some of the most important writings of Fr Vladan Perisic over the last couple of decades available, together in one volume, to an English speaking audience. Fr Vladan’s work is well known in Serbia, and in broader academic and ecumenical circles. But it can now receive the much wider readership that it deserves, and, as a collected volume, its scope, coherence, and significance is sure to receive the recognition it deserves.

The eighteen essays collected here treat diverse topics, from academic theology (and its place in the Church) to questions of life and death, from historically oriented studies, on Sts Ignatius and Gregory Palamas, to contemporary issues, such as human rights and ecology. Each of them is characterized by meticulous scholarship and great insight, clarity of thought and expression.

While treating diverse topics, there is nevertheless an underlying unifying approach, one that is captured well by the arresting title of this book: Theological Disambiguations. The title, of course, calls to mind the great (and dense) work of St Maximus the Confessor, the Ambigua. It is characteristic that this saint, the most profound theologian among the Fathers, does not attempt to construct an overarching edifice of systematic theology, as has become the practice over the last centuries, but rather explores particular theological points, taking his lead from difficult statements of St Gregory the Theologian, and in doing so leads the reader to a more expansive theological vision, in which the original point of difficulty becomes recontextualized and greater insight into the breadth and depths of the wisdom of God is attained. Fr Vladan’s approach is similar, taking various issues that have become problematic due to the modern polarization between faith and reason, and seeking to resolve the problematic by working carefully through the issues involved and finding a standpoint prior to the opposition, so opening out a more comprehensive horizon.

Of particular interest is Fr Vladan’s assertion that the proper context of Christian theology is philosophy. Much of late twentieth-century theology has been devoted to exploring the fact that all theology is necessarily contextual, for it is always—from the apostles and evangelists themselves to contemporary thinkers— articulated by historically, geographically, and sociologically situated human beings. Against the tendency to then re-contextualize theology within different anthropological, sociological, cultural, and political contexts, Fr Vladan argues, rightly, that the proper context for theology is in fact philosophy. While every theologian certainly thinks, speaks, and writes in a particular socio-political situation, the problems address, as theology, belong to a different realm. To use Fr Vladan’s image: the evangelist John, the "Theologian", asserts "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (Jn 1:14), not "the Word became a Jewish rabbi and dwelt in first-century Judea"; as true as the second statement is, it is not theology, whereas the first statement is properly theological, reflected upon intensely in the theological debates of the following centuries, concluding that the enfleshed Word defines for us both what it is to be God (he is consubstantial with the Father) and what it is to be human (he is consubstantial with us), in one, and as such is "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15). After a couple of centuries of intense theological scholarship, which has resulted in the fragmentation of the discipline of theology into a variety of fields (Scriptural study, liturgical study, patristics, systematic reflection, etc.) that are often unable to understand each other, understanding the proper nature of theological discourse, as theology, is one of the most pressing contemporary issues. This "unconventional handbook" has much to offer, as we begin to learn again how to speak true theology.


SA

 

People Directory

John Dapcevich

John Evan Dapcevich (born September 26, 1926) is a retired state official in Alaska.

Dapcevich was born in Hazleton, Pennsylvania in 1926 to Sam and Stana Dapcevich, immigrants from Montenegro, where his father worked in coal mines. The family moved to Juneau, Alaska in 1928 living with a Serbian community, with John entering school years later. He moved to Sitka, Alaska in 1960 where he served six terms as Mayor during a span of 20 years. During his time in office, Dapcevich successfully unified the city of Sitka city with various borough governments. Upon his retirement in 1995, he moved back to Juneau.

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Publishing

The Church at Prayer

by Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra

Publisher’s note

Many readers of the addresses of Elder Aimilianos, which have been published in the five-volume series, rchimandrite Aimilianos, Spiritual Instructions and Discourses (Ormylia, 1998-2003), have frequently expressed the wish for an abridged and more accessible form of his teaching. In response, we are happy to inaugurate a new series of publications incorporating key texts from the above-mentioned collection. Other considerations have also contributed o this new project, such as the selection of specific texts which address important, contemporary questions; the need for a smaller, more reader-friendly publication format; and the necessity for editing certain passages in need of clarification, without however altering their basic meaning.

Above all, the works collected in this volume reflect the importance which the Elder consistently attached to prayer, spirituality, community life, worship, and liturgy. Thus the experientially based works "On Prayer", and "The Prayer of the Holy Mountain", which deal primarily with the Prayer of the Heart, appear first, followed by the summary addresses on "The Divine Liturgy", and "Our Church Attendance". These are in turn followed by the more socially oriented discourses on "Our Relations with Our Neighbor", and "Marriage: The Great Sacrament". Finally, the present volume closes with the sermons on "Spiritual Reading" and "The Spiritual Life", which in a simple and yet compelling manner set forth the conditions for "ascending to heaven on the wings of the Spirit".

It is our hope that The Church at Prayer will meet the purpose for which it is issued and will serve as a ready aid and support for those who desire God and eternal life in Him.