Book Review: Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology

Today I'm reviewing a book that I was looking forward to reading, started, and then finished on a long hot train journey because, perhaps bizarrely, it was incredibly readable. Andrew Louth's 'Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology' is a fascinating, concise and enjoyable tour of the theology (both the theory and the practice) of one of Christianity's largest denominations, the Orthodox Church. I haven't written a huge amount about them before, but my tutor at university was a big fan, and she encouraged my interest in this area.

The blurb on the first page states that Louth is both 'Professor Emeritus of Patristic and Byzanitne Studies at Duyrham University', among other academic roles, and a priest of the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Sourozh (Moscow Patriarchate), and serves a parish in Durham. As you might expect, this gives him pretty good qualifications to write such a book! Whilst the Orthodox Church is not huge in the UK, globally there are around 225-300 million members/adherents, making it a theological movement worth knowing a little about. Louth offers a very helpful, and as I said very readable introduction, that is both positive but not afraid to highlight the differences with the Western Churches.

After a very helpful brief introduction to 'who are the Eastern Orthodox?', Louth moves on into the first of his 9 chapters, each of which examines a major area of Orthodox thought and faith. Interestingly, he begins with 'Thinking and doing, being and praying'. We start with the mystery of knowing God, and and introduction to Orthodox methods of theological and scriptural understanding, in order to guide and anchor the rest of his introduction. Given the scale of the thought condensed into this reasonably small book, this is a very helpful opening chapter, setting the tone for the rest of the book and teasing bits of future chapters in a way that leads the reader down the rabbit hole, as it were (the chapter actually starts with an Alice in Wonderland reference!).

We move through the second chapter, on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity according to the Orthodox, which includes some interesting discussion on mystery and Patristic views of the Trinity, into a chapter on the Orthodox take on creation. This chapter is particularly interesting in light of current debates, as Louth notes "the doctrine of creation was not a generally held belief, except among Jews and Christians, in late antiquity, and for them it conveyed something very important". True, and poignant for Christians in a culture where the Doctrine of Creation can often seem apologetically awkward. The next chapter also touches on an area open to apologetic frustration;

This fourth chapter, as Louth puts it, is the central chapter of the book, and I personally rather enjoyed the way in which he causally (and in my mind somewhat accurately!) describes what Western scholarship has done to our understanding of Jesus. This chapter is interesting, not least as Louth notes the important point that "the question is not Who was Christ? but: Who is Christ?". This helpful restatement of our resurrection religion is welcome, and reminded me as I read it that whilst I am not, and am unlikely ever to become, Eastern Orthodox, there is an irreducible core to the Christian faith, and we are all Easter Christians.

Thus far in this review I have acknowledged the readability and impressive depth of Louth's work, and noted points of agreement and interest in the content. However, as I noted a sentence ago, I am not Eastern Orthodox, and many millions of other followers of Jesus are not, and so I will skip a few chapters to get to a few that demonstrate some key differences. One difference is the rather interesting notion, addressed in chapter 5, of the Orthodox understanding of "ancestral sin", in difference to the more common Western understanding, via Augustine, of original sin. Other differences can be found in the seventh chapter, 'Sacraments and icons: the place of matter in the divine economy'. The Eastern Orthodox have a fascinating understanding of Sacrament, and also have the additional language and usage of icons, objects which help in devotion. There are of course elements of this in Western Christian thought, whether it be a Roman Catholic Rosary or a Reformed Evangelical Study Bible, but for the most part this is an area of difference that I think is reasonably serious.

Overall, though, this is an immensely rich, satisfying and fascinating book. Louth has written a readable introduction to a huge subject area, in a way that brings out the tapestry of Orthodox thought without trying to say it is the same as every other Christian tradition/denomination. I can warmly recommend this book, to interested parties, and also to beginning students wanting to get their heads around another stream of Christianity. I wonder also, as I tweeted mid-read, that perhaps this is the sort of book that those disgruntled with Evangelicalism should read, rather than some of the 'protest' or 'emergent' books like Rollins 'How (not) to Speak of God'. Louth shows the depth and beauty of Orthodox Theology, but through accessible Western eyes.

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As I said in the start of my review, I have not written a huge amount about the Orthodox Church before, though I mention their size and uniqueness in my "On Church Unity", and there is of course a reference or two in terms of historical context in a book on Church History that I reviewed, Miranda Threlfall-Holmes "The Essential History of Christianity". You may also enjoy, if interested in some depth from a Western perspective at an introductory level, Alister McGrath's recent "Faith and the Creeds (Christian Belief for Everyone)".

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