STOTS faculty member’s latest book released

Orthodox Understanding of Salvation

Dr. Christopher Veniamin’s latest work, The Orthodox Understanding of Salvation: “Theosis” in Scripture and Tradition, was recently released by Mount Tabor Publishing.

The volume may be ordered directly from the publisher and from Saint Tikhon’s Monastery Bookstore.

Dr. Veniamin is Professor of Patristics at Saint Tikhon’s Seminary.  As with his prodigious publication, Saint Gregory Palamas: The Homilies, his latest work, The Orthodox Understanding of Salvation, is the fruit of the special relationship he enjoyed with Elder Sophrony and the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist, Essex, England, coupled with his many years of theological study and research at the University of Thessalonica and Oxford University and his experience teaching at Saint Tikhon’s Seminary over the past 20 years.

The Orthodox Understanding of Salvation brings together some of Dr. Veniamin’s talks and articles, hitherto available only in relatively little-known theological journals and periodicals, which pertain to the fundamental question of the purpose of human existence, to salvation, as understood in the age-old and unbroken tradition of the Orthodox Christian Faith.

This scholarly work aims to initiate the reader into the fundamental theological presuppositions of Patristic theology. The juxtaposition of works delivered to diverse audiences is designed to demonstrate that the same principles are applicable to the sermon and theological treatise alike, that in the Orthodox Christian tradition there is no separation between ethics and doctrine, but rather that Christian living and theology are one indivisible reality, because Christ – the measure of all things human and divine, created and uncreated – is One. Divided into two parts, Praxis and Theoria, the book covers a wide range of topics, based on key Scriptural passages and the writings of some of the greatest masters of the Christian spiritual life, all of which are held together by criteria which are born not of speculation, but of the face to face encounter with the living God.