By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
Twenty-five years ago, on November 1, 2001, the feast of the Holy Unmercenaries, the leading dogmatic theologian, Father John Romanides, fell asleep in the Lord in front of the Church of Saint Paraskevi on Aiolou Street, near the Church of Panagia Chrysospiliotissa, at the very moment when he was preparing to light a candle. He was the Cappadocian and Prophet of Romiosini, understood as a way of theology and life.
His life was a continual struggle for the restoration and experience of Orthodox tradition as Orthodox theology and hesychasm. He encountered many forms of resistance and opposition because, from the eighteenth century onward, secularization entered the Orthodox Church, both in theology and in life.
He became acquainted with Orthodox theology and Orthodox hesychasm through his family environment, principally through his mother, who lived as an ascetic in central Manhattan, New York, very near the site of the present United Nations building. She later fell asleep in the Lord as a nun at the Sacred Monastery of Souroti, which Saint Paisios loved. He subsequently became acquainted with Orthodox theology through his first theological teacher, Father George Florovsky. He then became acquainted with Athonite hesychasm through a disciple of Saint Joseph the Hesychast, through Father Philotheos Zervakos, and through many Athonite Fathers.
He himself was distinguished by natural intelligence and clearly discerned the Orthodox theology of the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Fathers from scholastic and Protestant theology. For this reason, he recorded their differences with precision. While preparing his doctoral dissertation in Athens in 1955, he was reading Saint Symeon the New Theologian and Saint Gregory Palamas.
I have personal testimony from a distinguished clergyman who is still alive, Archimandrite Cyril, formerly Abbot of the Patriarchal and Stavropegial Monastery of Saint John the Forerunner in Essex, England. He knew Father George Florovsky and Father John Romanides in America. According to his testimony, they lived in the same apartment building in Boston, Father George Florovsky loved Father John Romanides very much, and he considered him his successor in theology. Unfortunately, I observe that almost all theologians deliberately ignore this reality and do not mention him as a student, friend, and successor of Father George Florovsky. Worse still, they regard others as students of Florovsky who were not, while overlooking Father John Romanides.
I did not have Father John Romanides as a professor at the Theological School of Thessaloniki, since he was elected Professor of Dogmatic Theology and appointed to the position, for various reasons, a year and a half after I graduated. However, because I had read almost all the great Fathers of the Church of the fourth century, especially Saint Gregory Palamas and Saint Symeon the New Theologian, and had become acquainted with many Athonite Fathers, when I subsequently read the writings of Father John Romanides, I understood that he had assimilated all the Orthodox interpretive keys to their theology, and for this reason I came to love him. I first met him in Athens, after his retirement, when my spiritual father, Saint Kallinikos, had fallen asleep in the Lord and I had been transferred there as a preacher. At that time, I understood his great worth. We were in contact almost daily, and I attended his talks in Athens, being impressed by his fidelity to the Orthodox theology of the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Fathers of the Church.
To date, I have published several books, such as Empirical Dogmatics, based on his oral teachings (Volumes I and II, approximately 830 pages); a large volume titled Father John Romanides: A Leading Dogmatic Theologian of the Orthodox Church (557 pages), in which I published, among other things, material concerning his relationship with Father George Florovsky and included twenty-five letters he wrote to him; another extensive book titled Patristic and Scholastic Theology and Their Environments, Based on the Oral Teachings of Father John Romanides (658 pages); as well as his Theological Studies (496 pages), and material relating to the Inter-Orthodox Theological Dialogue: On the Holy Spirit, the Mystery of the Cross, and the Resurrection of Christ (320 pages). Altogether, these works amount to approximately 3,000 pages.
In a few days, an extensive work of mine will be published, titled A Study of the Work and Teaching of Father John Romanides. It contains all the articles I have written about his work, approximately 700 pages. Other works will follow. This means that I know his teaching and work in depth.
Father John had a theological influence on many clergymen, monks, and theologians, who remember him as an inspired teacher and theologian. I also observe that, in the academic world, although many do not say so, people have been strongly influenced by his teaching, which was pioneering and groundbreaking in his time. The statement of the professor in America, Father George Dragas, is characteristic: “Who has not been influenced by him?”
There are also some who systematically write against his theology, which is, nevertheless, the theology of the Orthodox Church. They do so either out of ignorance of the theology of the Prophets, the Apostles, and the Fathers; because of the influence they have received from other traditions originating in the Western world; because they are unfamiliar with the overall teaching of Father John Romanides; or for other reasons, including internal, psychological, and hostile motives. I observe that these people usually have problems with the Philokalic-Hesychastic tradition of the Church. I observe that they do not want to understand him, even though thousands of pages have been written analyzing his teaching.
I will subsequently publish a critique of what is, at the very least, an uncritical presentation of his work, titled "Conscious Misinterpretations of the Overall Teaching of Father John Romanides."
Let us hope that what is written against him is the result of ignorance and superficiality.
May the memory of the leading dogmatic theologian of our Orthodox Church, Father John Romanides, be eternal.
I would like to publicly thank the Very Reverend Archimandrite Father Ephraim, Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Vatopaidi on Mount Athos, who recently announced at the Monastic Assembly held at the Sacred Monastery of Faneromeni in Lefkada that his monastery, together with the “Maximos the Greek” Foundation, will convene a theological conference to study the remarkable work of Father John Romanides.
Click here for the article: “Conscious Misinterpretations of the Overall Teaching of Father John Romanides” (the article translated into English is forthcoming)
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
