Neo-Patristic Synthesis in the Orient?

Abstract

Abstract The essay touches upon the impact of the Neo-Patristic Synthesis ideas that were spread at St. Sergius Seminary on the thought and education of Bishop George Khodr, the most prominent Arab-Lebanese Orthodox theologian who did his theological training there and was close to Alexander Schmemann. We do know that George Khodr joined St. Sergius Seminary in Paris and studied there between 1947 and 1952 under Alexander Schmemann and Nicholas Afanasiev, and side-by-side with John Meyendorff, to mention only few of those whose theological legacy is associated in one way or another with George Florovsky’s Neo-Patristic Synthesis project. It is my intention to trace a link between Khodr and this Russian-European Orthodox school of thought by looking, first, at how St. Sergius and its teachers are mentioned in some of George Khodr’s own writings, and, second, by looking at specific testimony on George Khodr and his promising potential as a theologian, found in some of the letters that Alexander Schmemann wrote to George Florovsky on the situation in St. Sergius Seminary, after the latter’s departure to the USA. In these letters, we will glean some data on how Neo-Patristic Synthesis ideas influenced the young theology student, Khodr, during his student years at St. Sergius and how Khodr himself was appraised by his teachers there.