Vladimir Lossky

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Vladimir Lossky
Владимир Лосский
Born
Vladimir Nikolayevich Lossky (Владимир Николаевич Лосский)

(1903-06-08)8 June 1903
Göttingen, German Empire
Died7 February 1958(1958-02-07) (aged 54)
Paris, France
Nationality
Spouse
Madeleine Shapiro
​
(m. 1928)​
ParentNikolay Lossky
RelativesOlga Lossky (great-granddaughter)
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of Paris
Doctoral advisorÉtienne Gilson[1]
Influences
Academic work
DisciplineTheology
Sub-discipline
School or traditionEastern Orthodox theology
InstitutionsSt. Dionysius Institute in Paris
Notable worksThe Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1944)
Influenced

Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky

theosis as the main principle of Eastern Orthodox Christianity
.

Biography

Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky was born on 8 June (

Petrograd University in 1919, and, in the spring of 1922, was profoundly struck when he witnessed the trial which led to the execution of Metropolitan Benjamin of St. Petersburg by the Soviets. Metropolitan Benjamin was later canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.[4]

In November 1922, Lossky was expelled from Soviet Russia with his entire family. From 1922 to 1926, he continued his studies in Prague, and, subsequently, at the Sorbonne in Paris, where in 1927, he graduated in medieval philosophy.[citation needed] He married Madeleine Shapiro on 4 June 1928.[14]

Lossky settled in Paris in 1924.

ecclesiastical history in this institute until 1953, and, from 1953 to 1958, in the diocese of the patriarchate of Moscow, "rue Pétel" in Paris. He was a member of the Brotherhood Saint Photius and the ecumenical Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius.[citation needed] His best-known work is Essai sur la theologie mystique de l'Église d'orient[17] (1944) (English translation, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1957).[18]

Lossky died of a

heart attack on 7 February 1958 in Paris.[19]

Theology

Lossky's main theological concern was

Gregory Nazianzen, and Gregory Palamas.[citation needed] Georges Florovsky termed Lossky's Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church a "neopatristic synthesis".[20]

The genius of Eastern mystical theology lay, he contended, in its apophatic character, which he defined as the understanding that God is radically unknowable in human, thus philosophical, terms. Consequently, God's special revelation in Scripture must be preserved in all of its integrity by means of the distinction between the ineffable divine essence and the inaccessible nature of the Holy Trinity, on the one hand, and the positive revelation of the Trinitarian energies, on the other. "When we speak of the Trinity in itself," said Lossky, "we are confessing, in our poor and always defective human language, the mode of existence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one sole God who cannot but be Trinity, because He is the living God of Revelation, Who, though unknowable, has made Himself known, through the incarnation of the Son, to all who have received the Holy Spirit, Who proceeds from the Father and is sent into the world in the name of the incarnate Son."[21] The Trinitarian processions in revelation thus produce the energies which human beings experience as grace and by which they are sanctified or "deified". In his Mystical Theology he argued that the theologians of the undivided Church understood that theosis was above knowledge (gnosis).[22][page range too broad]

This was further clarified in his work, Vision of God (or

theoria). In both works Lossky also stresses the differences between Christian thinkers such as Pseudo-Dionysius and such thinkers as Plotinus and the Neoplatonists, asserting that Christianity and Neoplatonism, though they share common culture and concepts, have very different understandings of God and ontology.[citation needed
]

Vladimir Lossky, like his close friend

slavophile movement and its core concept of sobornost, which was later used and developed by Vladimir Soloviev
.

The Economy of the Holy Spirit

Lossky articulates a distincte role of the Holy Spirit post-Pentecost, the Economy of the Holy Spirit (cf. ch. 8, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church). He interprets Ephesians 1:22ff (the church is [Jesus'] body; the fullness of him who fills everything in every way) stating that "if Christ is 'head of the church which is his body,' the Holy Spirit is He 'that filleth all in all'" meaning that while particular believers of Jesus are members of the corporate Christ which relating only to portions of the entire Christ, instead touching and relating only to particular 'parts of the body,' they however receive the Holy Spirit in fullness as opposed to part.[23] Simultaneously, humans find themselves "reunited in the hypostasis of Christ, if it is an 'enhypostatized' nature - one existing in an hypostasis [in this case Jesus'] - the human persons who form the hypostasis of this unified nature are not suppressed."[24]

Eastern theological definitions

Lossky argued in The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church that the technical terms of the Trinity doctrine are rooted in Hebrew

blasphemy against the Holy Spirit
.

Triune God in essence is the only uncreated being

The concept of the Triune God being a single God in essence or Ousia (as uncreated). A single God who as Father or infinite origin is an existence, as Son or flesh is an existence and as Spirit is an existence. One God in one Father.

God the Father

The Father of the Trinity is uncreated hyper-being (beyond being) in essence or

Hypostasis. The Father hypostasis in using the term God is used primarily as the name for God. As the term God is interchangeable with the term Father. As Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Son of the Father and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Father.[26]

God the Son

The Son of God or

Hypostasis
of God.

God the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit himself being light, life, animation and the source of the

Hypostasis of God. The Holy Spirit and the Christ being the hands of God the Father, reaching in from the infinite into the finite[d] (see Irenaeus
).

Created being

All things that are not God are created beings or are created in their essence. Mankind possesses

ex nihilo
. All things that are not God, are created in essence or being. God as hyper-being, and or in essence uncreated can be, by way of his existences, the infinite while generating himself as a man and also be the spirit, that by procession (from him God, Father), animates life.

Energies of God

See also: Essence–energies distinction

All three hypostasis sharing a common essence or

theoria
of Christianity and as such are not true theologians and are instead speaking of God through speculations, rather than experience.

Mysticism and theology

For Lossky, Christian mysticism and dogmatic theology were one and the same. According to Lossky mysticism is Orthodox dogma par excellence. The Christian life of prayer and worship is the foundation for dogmatic theology, and the dogma of the church help Christians in their struggle for sanctification and deification. Without dogma future generations lose the specific

Eastern Orthodox path to salvation (see soteriology
).

Bibliography

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Lossky became a French citizen c. 1939.[11]
  2. ^ Pronounced /ˌnɪkəˈlaɪ.əvɪtʃ ˈlɒski/.
  3. ^ John of Damascus wrote:

    Whatsoever the Son has from the Father, the Spirit also has, including His very being. And if the Father does not exist, then neither does the Son and the Spirit; and if the Father does not have something, then neither has the Son or the Spirit. Furthermore, because of the Father, that is, because the Father is, the Son and the Spirit are; and because of the Father, the Son and the Spirit have everything that they have.[27]
  4. ^ Irenaeus wrote: "Now man is a mixed organization of soul and flesh, who was formed after the likeness of God, and moulded by His hands, that is, by the Son and Holy Spirit, to whom also He said, 'Let Us make man.'"[28]

References

Citations

  1. ^ Coakley 2013, p. 126.
  2. ^ Gavrilyuk 2008, p. 713.
  3. ^ Sauvé 2010, pp. 139–140.
  4. ^ a b N. Lossky 1999, p. 288.
  5. ^ Sauvé 2010, pp. 44–45.
  6. ^ Chaplin 2012, p. 5.
  7. ^ Papanikolaou 2008, p. 233.
  8. ^ Louth 2015, p. xiv; Papanikolaou 2008, p. 233.
  9. ^ Franks, Romans, Feudalism, and Doctrine/Empirical theology versus speculative theology, Father John S. Romanides [1]
  10. ^ a b N. Lossky 1999, p. 289.
  11. ^ a b Louth 2015, p. 98; Sauvé 2010, p. 55; Seiling 2005, p. 79.
  12. ^ N. Lossky 1999, p. 288; Williams 1975, p. 1.
  13. ^ N. O. Lossky 1952, pp. 4, 395.
  14. ^ Sauvé 2010, p. 49.
  15. ^ Prokurat, Golitzin & Peterson 2010, p. 207.
  16. ^ Williams 1975, p. 28.
  17. ^ Williams 1975, p. i.
  18. JSTOR j.ctt1cgf332
    .
  19. ^ Louth 2015, p. 98; Morrel 1959, p. 35.
  20. ^ N. O. Lossky 1952, p. 395.
  21. ^ V. Lossky 1974, p. 89.
  22. ^ N. O. Lossky 1952, pp. 395–401.
  23. ^ Lossky, Mystical Theology, 128
  24. ^ Lossky, Mystical Theology, 135
  25. ^ V. Lossky 1991, pp. 50–51.
  26. ^ Hopko 1984, ch. "The Holy Trinity", s.v. One God, One Father.
  27. ^ John of Damascus. An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. Cited in Meyendorff 1983, p. 183.
  28. ^ Irenaeus 1994, p. 463.
  29. ^ Witte & Alexander 2006.

Works cited

Further reading

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