"One of the greatest spiritual writers of the Church of the East, and regarded as a major spiritual father throughout the Eastern Orthodox world," The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, 258.
So, is it now being stated that one has to be or have been Eastern Orthodox in order to correctly represent the theology found in Eastern Orthodoxy?
If that's true, then we can discount everything Orthodox says about Reformed Protestantism - not that he really gets that much correct anyway.
In point of fact:
St. Isaac is fully accepted as a saint in the Orthodox Church, though during his lifetime, he was canonically a member of the Assyrian Church of the East (i.e., the Nestorians). His writings nevertheless came to be extremely popular in Orthodox monastic circles and are well-known for their Orthodoxy. Veneration for him grew, and he came to be incorporated into the Orthodox calendar of saints. His inclusion is thus an indication that the Church does not regard canonical boundaries as being the litmus test of Orthodoxy.
So, yes, he's NOT EO, but on the other hand, he's a fully accepted and venerated saint within EO.
This very sympathetic article was written by a Russian Orthodox bishop:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.hilarion.orthodoxia.org/biography
"One of the greatest spiritual writers of the Church of the East, and regarded as a major spiritual father throughout the Eastern Orthodox world," The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, 258.
ReplyDeleteSo, is it now being stated that one has to be or have been Eastern Orthodox in order to correctly represent the theology found in Eastern Orthodoxy?
ReplyDeleteIf that's true, then we can discount everything Orthodox says about Reformed Protestantism - not that he really gets that much correct anyway.
In point of fact:
St. Isaac is fully accepted as a saint in the Orthodox Church, though during his lifetime, he was canonically a member of the Assyrian Church of the East (i.e., the Nestorians). His writings nevertheless came to be extremely popular in Orthodox monastic circles and are well-known for their Orthodoxy. Veneration for him grew, and he came to be incorporated into the Orthodox calendar of saints. His inclusion is thus an indication that the Church does not regard canonical boundaries as being the litmus test of Orthodoxy.
So, yes, he's NOT EO, but on the other hand, he's a fully accepted and venerated saint within EO.