• Corpus ID: 41659068

CHRISTIANITY OR FLOROVSKY ' S " SACRED HELLENISM " : QUESTIONING TWO METANARRATIVES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ENGAGEMENT WITH LATE ANTIQUE CULTURE

@inproceedings{Gavrilyuk2011CHRISTIANITYOF,
  title={CHRISTIANITY OR FLOROVSKY ' S " SACRED HELLENISM " : QUESTIONING TWO METANARRATIVES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN ENGAGEMENT WITH LATE ANTIQUE CULTURE},
  author={Paul L. Gavrilyuk and Georges Florovskys and Christian Hellenism and Theological Quarterly},
  year={2011}
}

• Paul L. Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovskys, +1 author Theological Quarterly
• Published 2011
• Philosophy

The literature on the subject of the "Fathers and Hellenism," the initially proposed topic of my lecture at this conference, is oceanic. I will not make a bold attempt at drinking this ocean in the present essay. Instead, I will limit my task to establishing the following three points. First, I note that the term "Hellenization" is insufficient as a descriptor of the cultural and intellectual transformation of the late antique Roman Empire. I propose to use the term "Hellenization+" to indicate that the spread of the Greek culture was accompanied by the processes of Romanization and Orientalization. Second, I argue that Adolf von Harnacks Hellenized (read: "corrupted") Christianity and Georges Florovskys Christian Hellenism (read: idealized Christian philosophia perennis) are two sides of one coin, two opposite extremes, which focus almost exclusively on the patristic encounters with Greek philosophy to the neglect of other cultural factors. Third, instead of offering a rival metanarrative, I propose a context-sensitive and domain-specific approach to the multifaceted question of early Christianity s inculturation. More concretely, I make a brief excursus into the worlds of Apologists, confessors and martyrs, monks, catechumens, and Emperors, showing the range of Christian responses to the surrounding culture. I also discuss various modes of the adaptation of non-Christian elements in early Christian art and architecture. My conclusion is that early Christian responses to surrounding culture ranged from confused assimilation to profound transformation. Hence, Harnacks and Florovskys metanarratives represent important, if profoundly flawed, limiting cases.