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Andrew Walker / Kostas Karras (eds.), Living Orthodoxy in the Modern World, Athens: Estia Publications, 2001, 272 pages.

This book, titled Living Orthodoxy in the Modern World, states from the outset that it includes messages by important theological personalities of Orthodoxy, deriving from the living experience and reality of the Orthodox tradition. Virtually all authors were born and live in countries of the western world. Some are Orthodox because of their family tradition while others came to Orthodoxy as adults through their personal quest. This book was first published in English and almost five years later in Greek with some additions and changes in its structure and content. The foreword to the texts is by the Ecumenical Patriarch. As he characteristically refers: “in a period of religious indifference and metaphysical drought, it is most significant that these twelve texts approach very specific issues and handle them in an acceptable way so that the Orthodox testimony… becomes property of every honest reader”.

After the Foreword by the Ecumenical Patriarch follows an Introduction by Andrew Walker with the title: “The Prophetic Role of Orthodoxy. The Aspect of  Diaspora”. The twelve articles have been written by the following authors and analyze the issues below: 1) Gillian Crow, The Orthodox Vision of Catholicity, 2) Anastasios (Yannoulatos), The Relation of Orthodoxy to the other Religions, 3)Vassilios, Bishop of Sergievo, Living in the Future, 4) Athanasios (Yevtits), Metropolitan of Herzegovina, The Eschata in Our Daily Life, 5) Kallistos (Ware), The Great Lent and Consumer  Society, 6) Anthony (Bloom), Death and Perdition, 7) H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr., An Orthodox Approach to Bioethics, 8) Jamie Moran, Orthodoxy and Modern Psychology of Depth, 9) Andrew Louth, Orthodoxy and Art, 10) Ioannis (Zizioulas), Man, Priest of Creation. A Contribution to the Discussion of  the Ecological Problem, 11) Kostas Karras, Holy Trinity,  Church and Politics in a secularized World and 12) Anthony (Bloom), The People of God.

          The book closes with the biographies of the authors.

Kallistos Ware, Bishop of Diokleia, The Orthodox Church, translated by Joseph Roilidis, Akritas publications, “History and Culture Series no 2”, 1996, pp. 563.

The book is separated in two parts. The first one concerns the History and the second one the Faith and Worship of the Orthodox Church. Starting from the beginnings of the Christian Church during the Pentecost (Acts 2,2-4), it develops the formation of the local Eucharistic community headed by bishop Ignatius of Antioch, and at the same time unfolds the relation of this local unity with the unity of the Church Universal in Cyprian of Carthage. The book stresses the importance of the Ecumenical Councils already in the period of the early three centuries, but also the establishment of the Church with the blood of martyrs during the Persecutions’ period. It deals with the Church of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, which articulated the basic dogmatic teaching and which coming out from the catacombs, had been recognized as the official religion of the Empire.

The writer explores the issues that in his opinion determined the future of the Church: The alienation of the Eastern from the Western Christendom whose peak was the Schism (1054), and the first attempts of reunification (Lyon 1274, Florence 1438-9), as well as the hysichast controversy. He also writes extensively on the conversion of Slavs and the “baptism” of Russia. Particularly informative for the reader is the report on the course of Orthodoxy in the 20^th c. in the areas of mission, diaspora and “Western Orthodoxy”.

The historical introduction on the formation of the Orthodox Church given in the first part of the book, allows the writer to bring in the light dull points as well as deformities of christian faith in the historic course of orthodox nations. One of them is the problem of Nationalism. Kallistos brings also our attention to other problems coming from the period of the Ottoman occupation, such as the involvement of superior administration in a system of corruptness and simony and the bequeathing of conservatism due to the defensive attitude that Orthodoxy adapted during the Ottoman occupation.

At the same time, according to Kallistos, there is the “pseudo-education” of Orthodox Theology. The low level of education and the fact that the Greeks who wished a higher education, were forced to study in Universities in the West, led to the alienation of orthodox criteria and to “Latinizing” or “Protestant-influenced” interpretations of Orthodox Church and Theology.

In the second part of the book the Faith and Worship of the Church are developed with in a live, non-scholastic, non-obsolescent, based on experience way. The problem of unity of Christian Churches is soberly examined and finally, proposed bibliography is presented.

Bishop of Diokleia, Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Theology in the 21^st Century, transl. N. Dodos – Anastasia Vasiliadou,ed. Indictos. Athens, 2005, 58 pages.

          After an introduction by Pantelis Kalaitzidis, in the first chapter under the title “Gazing into the Past”, Kallistos Ware expounds on the reasons for which he thinks that ecclesiology has been the primary issue of the Orthodox theology in the 20^th cent. In the next chapter, titled “The Challenge of the New Millennium”, there is an examination of the transformations on the political, social, technological and ecological level, which make the articulation of a theological anthropology imperative and also take over the leading role from the ecclesiology in the 21^st century.

The third chapter of the book establishes that neither in the time of the patristic theology nor in more recent times has a fully articulated system of  Christian anthropology been formulated and that the theology of the 21^st century ought to be innovative and pioneering, complementing the apophatic theology with an apophatic anthropology. Man, created in the incomprehensible image of God, is incomprehensible himself.

Going into the theology of the human figure, as created in the image of God, the book stresses that our orientation towards God ought to be the starting point of Anthropology.

The concluding chapter of this concise essay by Kallistos Ware, suggests re-activating the Greek patristic idea of man as an intermediary of heaven and earth, a secular functionary and priest of the creation. Of course, he considers that this can only be achieved in Christ, with the Christianization of the human person. Thus, man will emerge as a “Eucharistic animal” that  takes over the responsibility for the whole creation and offers it back to the Creator God. Kallistos stresses that the Eucharistic spirit is complemented with the ascetic one, the spirit of love, of sacrifice and kenosis. “I love, therefore, I am”, “I am loved, therefore, I am”; these are the mottos, with which the anthropology of the person will inseminate the testimony of the Christian theology in the 20^th century.