FRANCE AUTHOR · ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH · HISTORY
John Meyendorff
Also known as: Jean Meyendorff, John MEYENDORFF
Meyendorff was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, into the émigré Russian nobility as Johannes Freiherr (Ivan Vasilyevich) von Meyendorff. In France, Meyendorff was an Assistant Professor of Church History at the St. Sergius Institute, and a Fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. After his ordination to the priesthood in the Orthodox Church in 1959, Meyendorff and his family moved to the United States. There he joined the faculty of Saint Vladimir's Seminary, located in Tuckahoe, New York, as a Professor of Church History and Patristics. Additionally, he held successive joint appointments as a lecturer in Byzantine theology at Harvard University, Dumbarton Oaks (to which he returned for a semester as Acting Director of Studies in 1977), and as Professor of Byzantine History at Fordham University (from 1967). He also was Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary, both in New York City, and lectured widely on university campuses and at church events. He held the position of Dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary from March 1984 until June 1992. Source
COME HITHER, CHILD,' said the old Earl of Courtland to his daughter, as, in obedience to his summons, she entered his study; 'come hither, I say; I wish to have some serious conversation with you: so dismiss your dogs, shut the door, and sit down here.'
— from Marriage, 1818
Most acclaimed
Marriage
1818
Publisher's description -- Nearly everywhere and at all times, marriage has enjoyed a privileged status as the primary social unit -- the essential bond that created alliances between families and a bridge between the sexes. In joining a man and woman, marriage attempted to hold men to collective social standards, including responsibility for the women they impregnated and the children they fathered, while also stringently hedging in women's sexuality. In short, marriage has always demanded that both men and women sacrifice a considerable measure of individual freedom. In marriage, "I" becomes "we," and "we" frequently extends beyond the couple to extended family, clan, and society. For these reasons, both political and religious authorities typically have taken great care to present marriage as an institution to which individual interests must be subordinated. At the time of her death in January 2007, the celebrated historian Elizabeth Fox-Genovese was worried that these attitudes were in the process of being reversed. In this book, which she was in the midst of preparing for publication at the time of her passing, she argues that marriage is disintegrating under the rising demands that it serve not the good of the whole but the desires of the individual. A union that at one point was used to limit individual "rights" is now claimed as one right among many. The sexual liberation movements of the last forty years have seriously undermined marriage, argues Fox-Genovese, so much so that the institution seems to face the threat of extinction. Even so, she writes, "Marriage for love -- the promise of an enduring and engulfing bond between a man and a woman -- is a dream that refuses to die. ... It still promises that we will finally be loved as we long to be loved." That dream is the ultimate theme of this book, a fitting coda to Elizabeth Fox-Genovese's distinguished career.
The new man
1950
Meditations on spiritual identity and man's search for God, by a Trappist monk.
Rome, Constantinople, Moscow
1996
Gathered in this volume are studies on various historical and theological issues which have arisen between East and West over the centuries. These essays, characterized by Fr Meyendorff's typical brilliance and balance, discuss different aspects of the estrangement between the two halves of the Christian world and present an evaluation of several attempts at healing the schism. The problems related to the fall of Byzantium and the reuse of Russia as a major center of Orthodox mission and thought are also discussed. Father John Meyendorff ([actual symbol not reproducible] 1992), former dean of St Vladimir's Seminary, is one of the pioneers of the modern ecumenical movement. As a historian of the church and patristics scholar, and as a longtime participant in numerous ecumenical encounters, he is uniquely qualified to present this evaluation of the search for unity between East and West over the last millennium. Prepared shortly before his untimely death, this collection of previously published and unpublished materials challenges the churches today to continue their search for authentic unity. In a time when relations between East and West have suffered numerous setbacks - in the former Soviet Union, in the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere - Meyendorff calls upon theologians to remain ecumenical in their theology. What is really at stake, he affirms, "is not the preservation of cultural categories shaped in the distant past, but the true 'catholicity' of the Christian message for the world today."