John Savvas Romanides (; 2 March 19271 November 2001) was a theologian, Eastern Orthodox priest, and scholar who had a distinctive influence on post-war Greek Orthodox theology.
Biography John Romanides was born in Piraeus, Greece, on 2 March 1927. He was born to a family of Cappadocian Greeks who had recently left Anatolia as refugees due to the Greek genocide there. He was named after John the Russian, an Orthodox saint associated with the family's village in Anatolia. His family emigrated to the United States when he was only two months old. He grew up in New York, and after completing high school he decided to attend seminary. He went to Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, in Brookline, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1949.
Romanides was ordained an Orthodox priest in 1951, working at a parish in Connecticut until 1954. He enrolled in Yale Divinity School, earning a masters degree in theology there, but also studied at the St. Sergius School of Theology, Columbia University, and St. Vladimir's seminary. It was at the last institution where Romanides was taught by Georges Florovsky, who would become an academic mentor of his. In 1955, Romanides moved to Greece to pursue a PhD at the University of Athens. His thesis, titled The Ancestral Sin, was completed there in 1957.
From 1956 to 1965, Romanides was Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Holy Cross Theological School in Brookline, Massachusetts. While teaching there, he helped establish both the Holy Transfiguration and Holy Nativity monasteries in Boston. In 1968 he was appointed as tenured professor of Dogmatic Theology at the University of Thessaloniki, Greece, a position he held until his retirement in 1982. From 1970, Romanaides was a Professor of Theology at the University of Balamand, in Lebanon.
Romanides died in Athens, Greece on 1 November 2001.
Theology
Romanides belonged to the "theological generation of the 1960s", which pleaded for a "return to the Fathers", and led to "the acute polarization of the East-West divide and the cultivation of an anti-Western, anti-ecumenical sentiment." According to Kalaitzidis, his early theological interests are "wide and broad-minded", but narrowed with the publication of Romiosini in 1975, which postulates an absolute divide between the Eastern Churches and the Western Church: "[h]ereafter, the West is wholly demonized and proclaimed responsible for all the misfortunes of the Orthodox, both theological and historical/national."
Romanides contributed many speculations, some controversial, into the cultural and religious differences between Eastern and Western Christianity. According to Romanides, these divergences have impacted the ways in which Christianity has developed and been lived out in the Christian cultures of East and West. According to Romanides, these divergences were due to the influences of the Franks, who were culturally very different from the Romans.
His theological works emphasize the empirical (experiential) basis of theology called theoria or vision of God, (as opposed to a rational or reasoned understanding of theory) as the essence of Orthodox theology, setting it "apart from all other religions and traditions", especially the Frankish-dominated western Church which distorted this true spiritual path. Studying extensively the works of 14th-century Byzantine theologian St. Gregory Palamas, he stated religion to be identical with sickness, and the so-called Jesus prayer of hesychasm to be both the cure of this sickness and the core of Christian tradition:
His research on dogmatic theology led him to the conclusion of a close link between doctrinal differences and historical developments. Thus, in his later years, he concentrated on historical research, mostly of the Middle Ages but also of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Augustine of Hippo Romanides sees St Augustine as the great antagonist of Orthodox thought. Romanides claims that, although he was a saint, Augustine did not have theoria. Many of his theological conclusions, Romanides says, appear not to come from experiencing God and writing about his experiences of God; rather, they appear to be the result of philosophical or logical speculation and conjecture. Hence, Augustine is still revered as a saint, but, according to Romanides, does not qualify as a theologian in the Eastern Orthodox church."While pointing this out, this writer has never raised the question about the sainthood of Augustine. He himself believed himself to be fully Orthodox and repeatedly asked to be corrected"
Original sin versus ancestral sin Romanides rejects the Roman Catholic teachings on Original Sin.The Ancestral sin by John S. Romanides (Author), George S. Gabriel (Translator) Publisher: Zephyr Pub (2002) Orthodox theologians trace this position to having its roots in the works of Saint Augustine. Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, and the Assyrian Church of the East, which together make up Eastern Christianity, contemplate that the introduction of ancestral sin into the human race affected the subsequent environment for humanity, but never accepted Augustine of Hippo's notions of original sin and hereditary guilt. It holds that original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam's descendants.Catechism of the Catholic Church, 405
Rejection of St. Augustine Eastern Orthodox theologians John Romanides and George Papademetriou say that some of Augustine's teachings were actually condemned as those of Barlaam the Calabrian at the Hesychast or Fifth Council of Constantinople 1351.This claim is made by Romanides in the title of his Augustine's Teachings Which Were Condemned as Those of Barlaam the Calabrian by the Ninth Ecumenical Council of 1351,Augustine himself had not been personally attacked by the Hesychasts of the fourteenth century but Augustinian theology was condemned in the person of Barlaam, who caused the controversy. This resulted in the ultimate condemnation of western Augustinianism as presented to the East by the Calabrian monk, Barlaam, in the Councils of the fourteenth century. Saint Augustine in the Greek Orthodox Tradition by Rev. Dr. George C. Papademetriou It is the vision or revelation of God (theoria) that gives one knowledge of God. Theoria, contemplatio in Latin, as indicated by John Cassian,"Videtis ergo principalem bonum in theoria sola, id est, in contemplatione divina Dominum posuisse" (Ioannis Cassiani Collationes I, VIII, 2) meaning vision of God, is closely connected with theosis (divinization).
John Romanides reports that Augustinian theology is generally ignored in the Eastern Orthodox church. Romanides claims that the Roman Catholic Church, starting with Augustine, has removed the mystical experience (revelation) of God (theoria) from Christianity and replaced it with the conceptualization of revelation through the philosophical speculation of metaphysics.Revelation for Palamas is directly experienced in the divine energies and is opposed to the conceptualization of revelation. The Augustinian view of revelation by created symbols and illumined vision is rejected. For Augustine, the vision of God is an intellectual experience. This is not acceptable to Palamas. The Palamite emphasis was that creatures, including humans and angles, cannot know or comprehend God's essence Romanides, Franks, Romans, Feudalism, p.67Revelation for Palamas is directly experienced in the divine energies and is opposed to the conceptualization of revelation. The Augustinian view of revelation by created symbols and illumined vision is rejected. For Augustine, the vision of God is an intellectual experience. This is not acceptable to Palamas. The Palamite emphasis was that creatures, including humans and angles, cannot know or comprehend God's essence Romanides, Franks, Romans, Feudalism, p.67 Romanides does not consider the metaphysics of Augustine to be Orthodox but Pagan mysticism. Romanides states that Augustine's Platonic mysticism was condemned by the Eastern Orthodox within the church condemnation of Barlaam of Calabria at the Hesychast councils in Constantinople.
Criticism The Greek Old Calendarist, Archimandrite [later Archbishop] Chrysostomos González of Etna, CA, criticized Romanides' criticism of Augustine:
Heaven and Hell
According to Romanides, the theological concept of hell, or eternal damnation is expressed differently within Eastern and Western Christianity. According to John S. Romanides, "the Frankish [i.e. Western] understanding of heaven and hell" is "foreign to the Orthodox tradition".
According to Romanides, the Orthodox Church teaches that both Heaven and Hell are being in God's presence,(St. Isaac of Syria, Mystic Treatises) The Orthodox Church of America website which is being with God and seeing God, and that there is no such place as where God is not, nor is Hell taught in the East as separation from God. One expression of the Eastern teaching is that hell and heaven are being in God's presence, as this presence is punishment and paradise depending on the person's spiritual state in that presence. For one who hates God, to be in the presence of God eternally would be the gravest suffering. Aristotle Papanikolaou and Elizabeth H. Prodromou wrote in their book Thinking Through Faith: New Perspectives from Orthodox Christian Scholars that for the Orthodox the theological symbols of heaven and hell are not crudely understood as spatial destinations but rather refer to the experience of God's presence according to two different modes.Thinking Through Faith: New Perspectives from Orthodox Christian Scholars page 195 By Aristotle Papanikolaou, Elizabeth H. Prodromou
The saved and the damned will both experience God's light, the Tabor light. However, the saved will experience this light as Heaven, while the damned will experience it as Hell.Regarding specific conditions of after-life existence and eschatology, Orthodox thinkers are generally reticent; yet two basic shared teachings can be singled out. First, they widely hold that immediately following a human being's physical death, his or her surviving spiritual dimension experiences a foretaste of either heaven or hell. (Those theological symbols, heaven and hell, are not crudely understood as spatial destinations but rather refer to the experience of God's presence according to two different modes.) Thinking Through Faith: New Perspectives from Orthodox Christian Scholars page 195 By Aristotle Papanikolaou, Elizabeth H. Prodromou Theories explicitly identifying Hell with an experience of the divine light may go back as far as Theophanes of Nicea. According to Iōannēs Polemēs, Theophanes believed that, for sinners, "the divine light will be perceived as the punishing fire of hell".Iōannēs Polemēs, Theophanes of Nicaea: His Life and Works, vol. 20 (Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996), p. 99