Tag Archives: Gregory of Nazianzus

To See God Crucified: The Theopaschism of St Gregory Nazianzen

Posted on 2 January 2022 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Before there was Jürgen Moltmann and his celebrated book The Crucified God, there was St Gregory the Theologian. Of the early Church Fathers none spoke more directly and more unitively of the death of the eternal Son. The gospel is … Continue reading →

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St Gregory the Theologian and the Apollinarian Nonsense

Posted on 28 December 2021 by Fr Aidan Kimel

A God-man without a human mind—that appears to have been the view advanced by Apollinarius in the late 4th century. I suppose it makes some kind of sense. If the divine spirit effectively substitutes for the human mind in Jesus … Continue reading →

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Mixing and Blending: The Orthodox Recipe for Theanthropos

Posted on 21 December 2021 by Fr Aidan Kimel

“He comes forth, God with what he assumed, one from two opposites, flesh and spirit, the one deifying and the other deified. O the new mixture! O the paradoxical blending! He who is comes into being, and the uncreated is … Continue reading →

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The Unitive Christology of St Gregory the Theologian

Posted on 20 December 2021 by Fr Aidan Kimel

The christology of St Gregory the Theologian, writes Christopher Beeley, “remains one of the great theological achievements of Christian tradition.”1 One is struck by how Gregory antici­pates the christology of St Cyril of Alexandria. Here is no God dressed in … Continue reading →

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Apollinarius and the Truncated Humanity of Christ

Posted on 24 November 2020 by Fr Aidan Kimel

Virtually all I know about Apollinaris of Laodicea is that his heresy elicited a memorable response from St Gregory the Theologian: “What has not been assumed has not been healed.” So in preparation for reading the letters of Gregory to … Continue reading →

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Mary Prokathartheisa: A Patristic Antecedent to the Immaculate Conception

Posted on 4 December 2019 by Fr Aidan Kimel

In his monograph Immaculate Conception, Fr Christiaan Kappes advances a controversial thesis: invoking prokathartheisa (prepurified) as a title for the Theotokos, “the Greek Fathers—in the line of the Nazianzen until the introduction of Byzantine Thomism in the 14th century—never vacillated … Continue reading →

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St Basil of Caesarea, Pneumatomachoi, and the Divinity of the Holy Spirit

Posted on 6 June 2018 by Fr Aidan Kimel

“I neither chose to name the Holy Spirit God nor dare to call him a creature,” declared Eustathius of Sebaste in response to the Neo-Arian denial of the divinity of the Holy Spirit. At first glance, Eustathius’s ambivalence seems reasonable. … Continue reading →

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Mary Prokathartheisa

Posted on 10 September 2015 by Fr Aidan Kimel

In his monograph Immaculate Conception, Fr Christiaan Kappes advances a controversial thesis: invoking prokathartheisa (prepurified) as a title for the Theotokos, “the Greek Fathers—in the line of the Nazianzen until the introduction of Byzantine Thomism in the 14th century—never vacillated about … Continue reading →

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