Theology, as seen by Archimandrite Vasileios, is by its very essence liturgical; it is not a philosophy or a system but the expression of the church's mystical The first Christians lived their theology totally and with the whole of their bodies, just as they are baptized with the whole of their body and soul into the new life...Thus their liturgical gatherings were an initiation into the mystery of theology...The mystery of theology was celebrated in their lives, and they attained to the knowledge which is eternal life. Bishop Kallistos (Ware) states in his [Hymn of Entry] offers nothing less than a fresh vision of theology, the church and the world a vision that is both original and yet genuinely traditional. The quality that characterizes this remarkable book is above all a sense of wholeness. The unity of the divine and human in the incarnate Christ, the unity of heaven and earth in the Divine Liturgy, the unity between theology and spirituality, between theology and life - such are the author's master-themes. Hymn of Entry is part of the CONTEMPORARY GREEK THEOLOGIANS SERIES.

The theological and anthropological basis for the doctrine of deification as expounded by St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359).

This major Orthodox contribution to the study of "ethics" takes as its point of departure the concept of "hypostasis" or "person," not only as this is presented in the theology of the Greek Fathers but also as it is experienced in the worship, ascetical life and art of the Orthodox Church. In this perspective, morality is seen not as "an objective measure for evaluating character and behavior, but the dynamic response of personal freedom to the existential truth and authenticity of man." The author states that "freedom carries with it the ultimate possibility of taking precisely this that man should deny his own existential truth and authenticity, and alienate and distort his existence, his being." What we call the morality of man is the way he relates to this adventure of his freedom. Morality reveals what man is in principle, as the image of God, but also what he becomes through the adventure of his a being transformed "in the likeness of God."

The voice of John Zizioulas may turn out to be the fresh voice for which theology and especially ecclesiology have long been waiting. In the context of a complete theology, which includes extended consideration of the major theological topics the Trinity, Christology, eschatology, ministry, and sacrament, but above all, the Eucharist the author propounds a fresh understanding, based on the early Fathers and the Orthodox tradition, of the concept of person, and so of the Church itself. His consideration of the local church as 'catholic' in the literal sense, and the need to understand the universal Church not as a superstructure but as the communion of all Churches, provides the program for the ecclesiology of the future. Yves Congar has written that he considers the author to be 'one of the most original and profound theologians of our epoch' and that he 'presents a penetrating and coherent reading of the tradition of the Greek '

The Church Fathers asserted that man's true greatness is to be found in the fact that he is "called to be a god." They stressed that man realizes his true existence in the measure in which he is raised up toward God and united with Him. In the foreword to this study, Bishop Kallistos (Ware) reflects on how difficult it is today, because of our modern understanding of the human person, to find the right words to express the subtle but significant ways that Christian writers of the past saw this mysterious, often indefinable character of the human person. According to Bishop Kallistos, "few if any works have opened up for me more lines of inquiry than Deification in Christ" and few have helped me better to appreciate the Patristic approach" to the nature and destiny of man. In this extraordinary study, Panayiotis Nellas examines certain central themes of patristic anthropology synthetically, throughout the whole range of patristic anthropology synthetically, throughout the whole range of patristic literature. He then treats the same themes in a single father and in a service from the Orthodox liturgy. Finally, he cites a number of patristic passages at length and provides references and notes which incorporate the findings of modern scholarship. This approach not only provides an excellent introduction to patristic anthropology, but also clearly demonstrates the internal consistency and coherence of the Orthodox understanding of man and his relation to God and the world. Deification in Christ is part of the CONTEMPORARY GREEK THEOLOGIANS SERIES.