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The book “The Holy Mystery of the Church” by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk is published in Romanian
Renaşterea Publishing House in Cluj has issued the Romanian translation of the book “The Holy Mystery of the Church. Introduction to the History and Problems in the Debates on the Onomatodoxy” by Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk.
Written in 2002, the book is the first national systematic study of the debates on the veneration of the name of God, which started at the beginning of the 20th century on Mount Athos and then spread over to Russia, involving eminent church and public leaders, theologians and philosophers, including Rev. Sergei Bulgakov and Rev. Pavel Florensky, philosophers Aleksei F. Losev and Mikhail A. Novoselov. Restoring the background of the polemics in scrupulous detail, using archival documents unpublished earlier, the author gives primary attention to the theological comprehension of the essence of the debates.
Some chapters deal with the teaching on the name of God in the Old and New Testaments, in Byzantine and Syrian patristic works, as well as in the liturgical tradition of the Orthodox Church and Russian traditional theology. Special attention is given to the theory and practice of the Jesus Prayer among Byzantine and Russian monastics. Systematically analyzing major works of advocates and opponents of onomatodoxy (name-glorification), the author critically assesses the positions of both parties in the light of the Holy Tradition.
The book has been highly acclaimed by the specialists, readers, and the holy authorities of the Russian Orthodox Church and won the St. Macarius Prize. In 2006 the book was published in French by the Academic Press, a Swiss academic book publisher.
The translation of the book into Romanian was done with the blessing of His Eminence Andrei, Archbishop of Vad and Metropolitan of Cluj.
Published in the Romanian language were the following books by Metropolitan Hilarion “Christ – the Conqueror of Hell. The Descent into Hades from Orthodox Perspective” (Bucharest, 2008); “St. Simeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition” (Bucharest, 2009); “The Spiritual World of St. Isaac the Syrian” (Iaşi, 2013); “On Prayer” (Iaşi, 2014) and “The Mystery of Faith. An Introduction into Orthodox Theology” (Iaşi, 2014).
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