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book: Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality
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Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality

  • Edited by: Thomas Arentzen , Ashley M. Purpura and Aristotle Papanikolaou
  • With contributions by: Thomas Arentzen , Spyridoula Athanasopoulou-Kypriou , John Behr , Davor Džalto , Susan Ashbrook Harvey , Michael Hjälm , Pantelis Kalaitzidis , Andrii Krawchuk , Aristotle Papanikolaou , Ashley M. Purpura , Richard René , Bryce E. Rich , Ekaterini Tsalampouni , Dmitry Uzlaner , Haralambos Ventis and Gayle E. Woloschak
  • Preface by: Metropolitan Ambrosius, Helsinki
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2022
View more publications by Fordham University Press

About this book

This book offers theological, historical, and sociological treatments of sexuality in the Orthodox Christian world. It presents both academic and pastoral reflections on sex, seeking to open up the conversation about homosexuality and sexual diversity within Orthodox Christianity, aiming to create an agora for discussing the sexualities that are often thought of as untraditional.
The first scholarly book in English that grapples comprehensively with Orthodox Christianity and sex in the modern world

Author / Editor information

Arentzen Thomas :

Thomas Arentzen is a reader in church history and works as a researcher in Greek philology at Uppsala University and as a senior lecturer in Eastern Christian studies at Sankt Ignatios College, Stockholm School of Theology. He specializes in Byzantine literature and ecocriticism. Publications include The Virgin in Song: Mary and the Poetry of Romanos the Melodist (2017) and Byzantine Tree Life: Christianity and the Arboreal Imagination (2021), coauthored with Virginia Burrus and Glenn Peers.Purpura Ashley M. :

Ashley M. Purpura is an associate professor of religious studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University. She publishes on gender and Orthodoxy, and is the author of God, Hierarchy, and Power: Orthodox Theologies of Authority from Byzantium (2018).Papanikolaou Aristotle :

Aristotle Papanikolaou is professor of theology, the Archbishop Demetrios Chair of Orthodox Theology and Culture, and a Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He is also McDonald Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion. He is the author of two monographs and numerous scholarly articles on Orthodox theology, as well as co-editor of ten volumes.Arentzen Thomas :

Thomas Arentzen is a reader in church history and works as a researcher in Greek philology at Uppsala University and as a senior lecturer in Eastern Christian studies at Sankt Ignatios College, Stockholm School of Theology. He specializes in Byzantine literature and ecocriticism. Publications include The Virgin in Song: Mary and the Poetry of Romanos the Melodist (2017) and Byzantine Tree Life: Christianity and the Arboreal Imagination (2021), coauthored with Virginia Burrus and Glenn Peers.Athanasopoulou-Kypriou Spyridoula :

Spyridoula Athanasopoulou-Kypriou holds a PhD in systematic theology from the University of Manchester. She is a research and teaching associate at the International Hellenic University, lecturing on Christian Orthodox feminist hermeneutics, and a trained psychotherapist. Her latest book is entitled Here and Now: Essays on Philosophical Theology Concerning Gaze, Sexuality, Desire and Other Issues [in Greek] (2020).Behr John :

John Behr is the Regius Professor of Humanity at the University of Aberdeen, previously having been at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, New York, where he also served as dean. His recent publications include an edition and translation of Origen’s On First Principles and a study of the Gospel of John.Džalto Davor :

Davor Džalto is a professor of religion and democracy in the Department of Eastern Christian Studies at University College Stockholm. His research interests cover the fields of theology, social and political philosophy, and the theory and history of art. He is the author of numerous books, including Anarchy and the Kingdom of God, Art as Tautology, and The Human Work of Art.Harvey Susan Ashbrook :

Susan Ashbrook Harvey is the Willard Prescott and Annie McClelland Smith Professor of Religion and History at Brown University. Among other publications, she is the author of Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (2006) and Song and Memory: Biblical Women in Syriac Tradition (2010), and coeditor with Margaret Mullett of Knowing Bodies, Passionate Souls: Sense Perception in Byzantium (2017).Hjälm Michael :

Michael Hjälm is the dean of Sankt Ignatios College, Stockholm School of Theology. His field of studies is critical ecclesiology, where he makes use of a critical approach toward the practical aspects of the Church, developing theories for improving praxis. His most recent publication identifies the connection between the popular nationalist movements and the Russian Orthodox position on nationalism.Kalaitzidis Pantelis :

Pantelis Kalaitzidis is the director of the Volos Academy for Theological Studies, a research center in Greece dealing with contemporary issues for Eastern Orthodoxy. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the European Academy of Religion (Bologna), and the chair (with Aristotle Papanikolaou) of the Political Theology group of the International Orthodox Theological Association (IOTA).Krawchuk Andrii :

Andrii Krawchuk is professor emeritus and past president of the University of Sudbury, Canada. Author of Christian Social Ethics in Ukraine (1997) and coeditor of Eastern Orthodox Encounters of Identity and Otherness (2014) and Churches in the Ukrainian Crisis (2016), he is studying religious responses to the Maidan and the war in Ukraine.Papanikolaou Aristotle :

Aristotle Papanikolaou is professor of theology, the Archbishop Demetrios Chair of Orthodox Theology and Culture, and a Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He is also McDonald Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion. He is the author of two monographs and numerous scholarly articles on Orthodox theology, as well as co-editor of ten volumes.Purpura Ashley M. :

Ashley M. Purpura is an associate professor of religious studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University. She publishes on gender and Orthodoxy, and is the author of God, Hierarchy, and Power: Orthodox Theologies of Authority from Byzantium (2018).René Richard :

Richard René is a PhD candidate at the University of St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto. He serves in the Archdiocese of Canada of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). He is the Regional Chaplain, Pacific Region for Correctional Service Canada (CSC) and the director of St. Silas Orthodox Prison Mission.Rich Bryce E. :

Bryce E. Rich holds a PhD in Theology from the University of Chicago. He has participated in six conferences on Orthodoxy and sexuality in Finland, Norway, and England.Tsalampouni Ekaterini :

Ekaterini Tsalampouni is currently associate professor at the Faculty of Theology of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She teaches New Testament exegesis and theology. Her research focuses on the sociohistorical background of the New Testament, exegesis and theology of the Gospels and Pauline letters, ecological hermeneutics, and early Christianity.Uzlaner Dmitry :

Dmitry Uzlaner is research fellow at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, Russia. The most recent of his books are The Postsecular Turn: How to Think about Religion in the Twenty-First Century (in Russian, Izdatel’stvo instituta gaiidara, 2020), The End of Religion? A History of the Theory of Secularization (in Russian, Higher School of Economics Press, 2019), and Contemporary Russian Conservatism: Problems, Paradoxes, and Perspectives (Brill, 2019, co-edited with Mikhail Suslov).Ventis Haralambos :

Haralambos Ventis is an assistant professor of the philosophy of religion in the Department of Social Theology and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Theology of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. He is the translator of Christos Yannaras’s early work Heidegger and the Areopagite: On the Absence and Ignorance of God (2005), as well as the author of The Reductive Veil: Post-Kantian Non-Representationalism versus Apophatic Realism (2005) and Eschatology and Otherness (2019).Woloschak Gayle E. :

Gayle Woloschak is a professor of radiation oncology and associate dean of the Graduate School at Northwestern University. She has a PhD in biomedical sciences from the University of Toledo as well as a DM in in Eastern Christian studies from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Her interests are in evolution, molecular biology, and nanotechnology.Thomas Arentzen (Edited By)
Thomas Arentzen is a reader in church history and works as a researcher in Greek philology at Uppsala University and as a senior lecturer in Eastern Christian studies at Sankt Ignatios College, Stockholm School of Theology. He specializes in Byzantine literature and ecocriticism. Publications include The Virgin in Song: Mary and the Poetry of Romanos the Melodist (2017) and Byzantine Tree Life: Christianity and the Arboreal Imagination (2021), coauthored with Virginia Burrus and Glenn Peers.

Ashley M. Purpura (Edited By)
Ashley M. Purpura is an associate professor of religious studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies at Purdue University. She publishes on gender and Orthodoxy, and is the author of God, Hierarchy, and Power: Orthodox Theologies of Authority from Byzantium (2018).

Aristotle Papanikolaou (Edited By)
Aristotle Papanikolaou is Professor of Theology, the Archbishop Demetrios Chair of Orthodox Theology and Culture, and the Co-Director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University. He is also Senior Fellow at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion. He is the author of Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion, and The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy.

Reviews

I am deeply grateful to the scholars who contributed to this volume for providing us with new information and enlightening perspectives on Christianity and sexuality. It is refreshing to find so many chapters agreeing that all committed and faithful sexual partnerships among humankind may show authentic spiritual value. In a loving relationship—whether gay or straight—the presence of God may reside, as several chapters in this volume attest, as long as it opens up to the saving work of theosis.---Metropolitan Ambrosius, Helsinki, from the Foreword

In this unique collection, Orthodox-identified authors expand Orthodox approaches to sexuality with sources and methods distinctive to Orthodox theology. Both where same-sex marriage is legal, and where homophobia reigns, Orthodox readers need this book.---Eugene F. Rogers, Jr., author of Sexuality and the Christian Body


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Thomas Arentzen and Ashley M. Purpura
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Part I: Thinking through Tradition

Susan Ashbrook Harvey
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Bryce E. Rich
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Gayle Woloschak
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Ekaterini Tsalampouni
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Part II: Cultural and Pastoral Contexts

Pantelis Kalaitzidis
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Dmitry Uzlaner
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Michael Hjälm
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Andrii Krawchuk
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Richard René
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Part III: Thinking with Tradition

Spyridoula Athanasopoulou-Kypriou
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Kateřina Kočandrle Bauer
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Aristotle Papanikolaou
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Haralambos Ventis
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Davor Džalto
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John Behr
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Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
November 15, 2022
eBook ISBN:
9780823299706
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
352
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