From the neo-patristic synthesis to the post-patristic theology

Between the 15^th and the16^th of June 2009, the organizational meeting of the international Conference “Neo-Patristic Synthesis” or “Post-Patristic Theology”: Can Orthodox Theology be Contextual” was held at the Academy for Theological Studies in Volos (Greece). This conference, which was to take place in the period 3-6 June 2010, is organized by the Academy for Theological Studies in Volos (Greece), the Department of Orthodox Studies of the University Fordham (NewYork), the Department of Orthodox Theology of the University in Münster (Germany) and the Romanian Institute for Inter-Orthodox, Inter-confessional and Inter-religious Studies (Cluj). Getting together distinguished representatives of the present Orthodox theology from three continents, the Conference in 2010 aims at critically and constructively interrogating what the much-promising “neo-patristic synthesis”, proclaimed by George Florovsky in the first decades of the last century, brought about. The initiators of this debate start from the generic observation that the desirable rebirth of the patristic theology had not determined the assuming of an essential characteristic: the contextualization of the message of Christ’s Church, that is, the establishing of a dialogue between the Gospel and the world of today. Or, if the Holy Fathers of the first centuries succeeded in converting the data of the ancient culture, in defending the faith from the dogmatic point of view, by explicating it, in illustrating it liturgically, in giving the Christian theology the consistency of a system of life and thinking, all these were accomplished only because they knew how to develop that kind of inculturation or contextualization through which that which is immutable meets that which, by nature of the freedom it enjoys, is in continual movement. That “Christian Hellenism”, which was seen by Florovsky as the perennial pattern of any successful synthesis between the Gospel of Christ and the specific data of a country or a community from a certain period of time, was born exactly from the dialogue between Revelation and Creation. The conference in 2010 will contribute to the eventual identification of the ways through which the Orthodox theology of the beginning of the XXI^st century will bring about a communication bridge between eternity and history. Concretely, there will be a review of the biblical and patristic data of a contextual Orthodox theology, as well as the review of the contribution of the social theology, of Christian philosophy and art to the identification of a new language for old truths.