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RR 2011/256 Encyclopedia of Eastern Orthodox Christianity Edited by John Anthony McGuckin Wiley-Blackwell Malden, MA and Oxford 2011 2 vols ISBN 978 1 4051 8539 4 (print); ISBN 978 14443 9253 1 (e-book) £199/$400
Keywords Christianity, Eastern Europe, Encyclopedias
Review DOI 10.1108/09504121111155941
One of the distinctive characteristics of Eastern Orthodox Christianity is its spiritual insight into the relationship between human and divine. This has persisted across the centuries despite much dissent within (such as the Nestorian controversy in the fifth century on the divine nature of Jesus Christ) and much oppression without (early in the Ottoman Empire and later from political figures like Stalin, Hoxha and Ceausescu). In fact, even though there are substantial numbers today of Russian and Greek Orthodox Christians, commentators (both generalists and specialists) have noted how the Church has resurrected itself in Eastern Europe after the fall of Communism. Even so, the editor writes in his preface that the Church has been climbing back from its knees, that it survived the years only through the diligence of monasticism and the faith of the communion of saints in the Church (for whom the theology if one of the fulfilment of the covenant made by God in Christ originally to Israel). And, for all its reappearance, Eastern Orthodox Christianity is being superseded in many parts of the world by Islam.
The publication of this two-volume encyclopaedia has special resonance for "both Church and Academy" (Preface) because, while it has an impressive depth and scope, it is a work that genuinely can and should be purchased and consulted equally by those who practice the Christian faith (above all the Eastern Orthodox tradition) and by the wider readership of academics, theologians and sociologists of religion likely to interest themselves in the encyclopaedia. It has a good and fair mix of material on the history and theology of the Church (such as the Councils of Nicea and the desert fathers and mothers, on the one hand, and divine liturgy like the Eucharist and marriage and prayer, on the other). The editor is a well-recognised author of works such as The Orthodox Church (McGuckin, 2008) and a professor of church history at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University in the USA. His two associate editors are Julia...