Holy Beauty

Reconciling contrasting philosophical strands to unify aesthetics and philokalia in Orthodox theology. The philosophical and theological study of aesthetics has a long and rich history, stretching back to Plato’s identification of ultimate goodness and beauty, together representing the eternal form. Recent trends in aesthetic theory, however, characterised by a focus on the ‘beautiful’ at the expense of the ‘good’, have made it an object of suspicion in the Orthodox Church. In its place, Greek theologians have sought to emphasise philokalia as a truer theological discipline. Seeking to reverse this trend, Chrysostomos Stamoulis brings into conversation a plethora of voices, from Church fathers to contemporary poets, and from a Marxist political theorist to a literary critic. Out of this dialogue, Stamoulis builds a model for the re-appropriation of Orthodoxy’s patristic and Byzantine past that is no longer defined in antithesis to the Western present. The openness he proposes allows us to perceive afresh the world ‘shot through with divinity’, if only we can lift our gaze to see it. Dismantling the false dichotomy, philokalia or aesthetics, is the first step.

Reconciling contrasting philosophical strands to unify aesthetics and philokalia in Orthodox theology. The philosophical and theological study of aesthetics has a long and rich history, stretching back to Plato’s identification of ultimate goodness and beauty, together representing the eternal form. Recent trends in aesthetic theory, however, characterised by a focus on the ‘beautiful’ at the expense of the ‘good’, have made it an object of suspicion in the Orthodox Church. In its place, Greek theologians have sought to emphasise philokalia as a truer theological discipline. Seeking to reverse this trend, Chrysostomos Stamoulis brings into conversation a plethora of voices, from Church fathers to contemporary poets, and from a Marxist political theorist to a literary critic. Out of this dialogue, Stamoulis builds a model for the re-appropriation of Orthodoxy’s patristic and Byzantine past that is no longer defined in antithesis to the Western present. The openness he proposes allows us to perceive afresh the world ‘shot through with divinity’, if only we can lift our gaze to see it. Dismantling the false dichotomy, philokalia or aesthetics, is the first step.