Knowing the Purpose of Creation Through the Resurrection: Proceedings of the Symposium on St Maximus the Confessor, Belgrade, October 18-21, 2012

Publication Data: Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press & The Faculty of Orthodox Theology – University of Belgade, 2013
Format: softcover
Number of Pages: xx + 507
Dimensions (l × w × h): 22.8 cm × 15.1 cm × 2.8 cm
Additional Information: two-color printing, full-color illustrations
ISBN: 978‒1‒936773‒09‒1

   
Edited by Bishop Maxim (Vasiljević)

Number 20 of Contemporary Christian Thought Series

“The present volume is a collection of presentations delivered at the St Maximus the Confessor International Symposium held in Belgrade at the University of Belgrade from 18 to 21 October 2012. The primary motivation for organizing this Symposium arose from a desire to suitably honor the commemoration in 2012 of the 1350th anniversary of the repose of St Maximus the Confessor. Inspired by the enthusiasm and support of many scholars, and most notably by Bishop Atanasije of Herzegovina to whom we owe our heartfelt gratitude, the Department of Patristic Studies of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of the University of Belgrade in Serbia, in collaboration with the Orthodox Christian Studies Program of Fordham University, organized this international symposium on Saint Maximus under the title: ‘Knowing the Purpose of Creation through the Power of the Resurrection.’ The title of the conference is based on Saint Maximus’ words in his Centuries on Theology and Economy (1.66): ‘He who is initiated into the inexpressible power of the Resurrection apprehends the purpose for which God first established everything.’ A second incentive for the conference, equally important for the organizers, was the awareness that 32 years have passed since the epochal event of that first-ever symposium on St Maximus the Confessor, held in Fribourg, Switzerland, September 2-5,1980. The twenty-nine studies from that symposium, the work of the leading Maximus scholars of the middle of the twentieth century, were published the following year in Actes du Symposium sur Maxime le Confesseur, edited by Felix Heinzer and Christoph Schonborn. The resulting book instantly became an indispensible reference volume summing up an entire generation of Maximus studies[...].”
—“Preface”

CONTENTS

   Preface
   List of abbreviations
   Festal Ekloge for our Holy Father Maximus the Confessor
Chapter I: Sources, Influences, Appropriations
   The Mystery of Christ: God’s Eternal Gospel, for Man and for the World
      Bishop Atanasije (Jevtić) of Herzegovina
   St Maximus the Confessor: The Reception of His Thought in East and West
      Fr. Maximos Simonopetrites (Nicholas Constas)
   Maximus Confessor, Leontius of Byzantium, and the Late Aristotelian Metaphysics of the Person
      Brian E. Daley
   Maximus the Confessor and John Philoponus in Their Approach to Theology and Philosophy
      Grigory Benevitch
Chapter II: Person, Nature, Freedom
   Person and Nature in the Theology of St Maximus the Confessor
      Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon
   St Maximus’ Concept of a Human Hypostasis
      Torstein Theodor Tollefsen
   St Maximus the Confessor’s Contribution(s) to the Notion of Freedom
      Fr. Demetrios Bathrellos
   St Maximus the Confessor on the Will
      David Bradshaw
   The Dialectic of Communion and Otherness in St Maximus’ Understanding of the Will
      John Panteleimon Manoussakis
   The Concept of ἕξις (hexis) in the Theological Anthropology of Saint Maximus the Confessor
      Philipp Gabriel Renczes
Chapter III: Body, Pathos, Love
   Saint Maximus on the Mystery of Marriage and the Body: a Reconsideration
      Adam G. Cooper
   Pathos and Techné in St Maximus the Confessor
      Joshua Lollar
   Learning How to Love: Saint Maximus on Virtue
      Aristotle Papanikolaou
Chapter IV: The Interplay of Interpretations
   The Interpretive Dance: Concealment, Disclosure, and Deferral of Meaning in Maximus the Confessor’s Hermeneutical Theology
      Paul M. Blowers
   John the Evangelist as John the Forerunner? First Thoughts on the Use of Scripture in Ambiguum 21
      George Parsenios
   Contextualization and Actualization of St Maximus’ Textual and Spiritual Heritage
      Nino Sakvarelidze
Chapter V: Cosmic Dimension
   Where and When as Metaphysical Prerequisites for Creation in Ambiguum 10
      Pascal Mueller-Jourdan
   The Cosmos of the World and the Cosmos of the Church: Saint Maximus the Confessor, Modern Cosmology and the Sense of the Universe
      Alexei V. Nesteruk
Chapter VI: Church, Death, Resurrection, Eschata
   The Roots of the Church according to St Maximus the Confessor
      Bishop Ignatije Midić
   The Views of St Maximus the Confessor on the Institutional Church
      Andrew Louth
   Death, Resurrection, and the Church in St Maximus’ Theology
      Bishop Maxim Vasiljević
   The Ontological Realism of our Hopes Hereafter: Conclusions from St Maximus the Confessor’s Brief References
      Christos Yannaras
Chapter VII: Contemporary Readings
   A Contemporary Synthesis of St Maximus’ Theology: The Work of Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae
      Calinic Berger
   Georges Florovsky’s Reading of Maximus: Anti-Bulgakov or Pro-Bulgakov?
      Paul L. Gavrilyuk
Chapter VIII: Addendum to the Symposium
   A Note on the Definition of χρόνος and αἰὼν in St Maximus the Confessor through Aristotle
      Sotiris Mitralexis
   Maximus and the Healing of the Sexual Division of Creation
      Kostake Milkov, DPhil (Oxon)
   “Hypostasis,” “Person,” “Individual,” “Mode”: A Comparison between the Terms that Denote Concrete Being in St Maximus’ Theology
      Dionysios Skliris
Overview of the Symposium
   “Knowing the Purpose of Creation Through the Power of the Resurrection”: Symposium Memoranda
      Daniel Mackay
   The Theological Interpretation of the Frescoes of the Church of Saint Maximus the Confessor in Kostolac, Serbia
      Fr Stamatis Skliris
   Notes on Authors
   Index of Scriptural References
   Index of Patristic References
   Index of Classical References
   Index of Names