Orthodox Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholar
Overview
Drawing from Scripture and patristic teachings, Dumitru Staniloae offers clear discussion of the goal of Orthodox spirituality and major steps of the spiritual life. Part one of this text covers purification, part two talks about illumination, and part three, perfection. Here in translation from the original Romanian, the text retains its informal and conversational style.
Staniloae notes, “Orthodox spirituality has as its goal the deification of man and his union with God, without being merged with Him. It has as a basic conviction the existence of a personal God, who is the supreme source of radiating love. He prizes man and doesn’t want to confuse him with himself, but maintains and raises him to an eternal dialogue of love.”
Key Features
- Discusses the goal of Orthodox spirituality
- Outlines the major steps of the spiritual life
- Covers purification, illumination, and perfection
Top Highlights
“The man who doesn’t react in anyway is a corpse, and to react is to act. So a pure passivity doesn’t exist.” (Page 24)
“So three factors, or three causes, produce passions in man: 1) the mind weakened in its autonomous and proper work; 2) the work of sense perception, which has become predominant and has left its subordination to the mind, indeed, it has made the mind subordinate to it, and 3) an exclusive and irrational running after pleasure, even that obtained by the praises of his neighbors, and at the same time, a frightened flight from pain. These three causes are so interwoven, that in each one the other two are implicated.” (Page 91)
“Asceticism means, in the spirit of Eastern thought, the restraint and discipline of the biological, not a battle for its extermination. On the contrary, asceticism means the sublimation of this element of bodily affectivity, not its abolition. Christianity doesn’t save man from a certain part of his nature, but it saves him as a whole.” (Page 86)
“This is why the spiritual writers make a distinction between the two kinds of fear of God: the fear of slaves, that is the fear of His punishment, and the fear from love, that is the fear of not having His blessings. The first belongs to beginners, the second to the advanced.” (Page 130)
“Eastern asceticism advises us to meditate unceasingly on the last judgment, in order to increase in us the fear of God, by which we avoid sin.” (Page 133)
- Title: Orthodox Spirituality: A Practical Guide for the Faithful and a Definitive Manual for the Scholar
- Author: Dumitru Stăniloae
- Publisher: St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press
- Print Publication Date: 2003
- Logos Release Date: 2015
- Pages: 397
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Spiritual life › Orthodox Eastern Church; Orthodox Eastern Chruch › Doctrines
- ISBNs: 1878997661, 9781878997661
- Resource ID: LLS:RTHDXSPRTLSCHLR
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T20:48:30Z