A Eulogy to Fr. Georges Florovsky (1893-1979)
By Archimandrite [now Archbishop] Chrysostomos
Webmaster's note:
Between 1972 and 1974, Archbishop Chrysostomos, then a Preceptor in the psychology
department at Princeton University, took part in an exchange between the late Hieromonk
Seraphim Rose and the late Protopresbyter Georges Florovsky, then a Visiting Professor
in the department of religion at Princeton and an adjunct professor at the nearby
Princeton Theological Seminary. His Eminence later composed a short eulogy to Father
Florovsky, at the request of Father Seraphim, for The Orthodox Word. The original
title of this piece was, "A Flower on an Icon." When it was published in The
Orthodox Word under a different and rather negative title, His Eminence expressed some
dismay to the editor in a letter of protest which was, however, never printed. Archbishop
Chrysostomos asked that I add this note, when I asked for his permission to post this now
dated eulogy.
A HOLY STRUGGLER once described love: Love is to find a leper,
give him your body, and then willingly take his body as your own. Before such love, which
of us does not tremble with awe and shame at the poverty of what the world receives today
as Christian love? Fasting perfectly, in the imagery of St. John Chrysostom, we devour
others with our foul tongues. Holding to the steadfastness of the letter, we lose our grip
on the fragility of the spirit. Hastening to correct the one who errs, we lose ourselves
in error. Beholding the splinter in the eye of another, we turn from the beam in our own,
as our Lord spoke of the loss of love in judgment.
So it is that the recent passing of Father Georges Florovsky went by, in traditionalist
Orthodox circles, without great notice for the most part, and with lamentably negative
attention in some instances. So "perfect" in our Orthodoxy have many of us
become that we lose not only Christian love, but the compassionate sense of honor that the
Church has always reserved for those who, though they may have imperfectly served the
Church, nonetheless served Her with their hearts. Feeling so convicted, then, we wish to
make a few humble comments about Father Florovsky and ask that now, hopefully finding
himself near the "bosom of Abraham," he will forgive our reception of his work
and passing and thereby accept our sincere private prayers for the rest of his soul.
Father Florovsky was above all a scholar. Indeed, his scholarship, many have charged,
seemed to dwarf his priesthood. In this sense he was not free from the taint that mere
intellectual knowledge of the Holy Church casts on a man. But at the same time, Father
Florovsky conveyed to any objective and sincere observer a certain sweetness from the
Fathers that he so assiduously studied. Such an image is tragic, to be sure. In his
writing, Father Florovsky crystallized this tragic contradiction. He wrote on subjects of
critical importance to contemporary Orthodoxy: on the Eastern Fathers of the fourth
century and the Byzantine Fathers of the fifth to the eighth centuries, from whose
writings the quintessence of the historical expression of Orthodox spirituality can be
gleaned. Even to devote particular attention to these Fathers is to open oneself to the
most deeply hidden message of early Patristic thought. His contribution in this area was
so decisive that, before their projected formal translation into English, manuscripts of
these two works in crude, typewritten form, only roughly translated, circulated among
scholars. His collected works, an on-going publication project, include perhaps the most
superb volume on the Orthodox view of Scripture and Tradition that can be had in English;
it is nothing less than a compendium of Patristic thought on these subjects.
Yet Father Florovsky could not, in these valuable gifts of wisdom to the Orthodox world
in the West, come to a full, uncompromised statement of Orthodox Truth. Nothing better
illustrates this than his otherwise brilliant commentaries on St. Gregory Palamas, where,
with peculiar timidity, he so cautiously presents the notion of man's
"deification" by Divine Grace that the notion itself loses its remarkable and
tremendous impact. He succumbs, it seems, to the Western resistance to Palamite thought,
rather more by understatement than by disavowal.
In his personal life, Father Florovsky's timidity once again evokes an atmosphere of
tragedy, of contradiction, and paradox. For one so Patristic in his outlook and
scholarship, he was surprisingly reticent in his condemnation of the heretical Sophiology
of Bulgakov. Though he openly criticized Father Paul Florensky's
"psychological-esoteric" Sophian theories and rightly saw them as
anti-Christocentric and Florensky as a "stranger to the Orthodox world," Father
Florovsky was unwilling to lend his scholarly abilities and insight into the Fathers to
the refutation of Bulgakov's far more popular (and thus more dangerous) heresies. And at
the same time, when we realize that Father Florovsky refused to attack Bulgakov in the
atmosphere of academic pride and out of respect for Bulgakov's friendship with him, we see
in Florovsky a sense (albeit a misguided and misplaced sense) of Patristic humility and
compassion. We can marvel, too, that Florovsky was to remain for the greatest part of his
priesthood (having been ordained into the "Paris group" of Bishop Eulogius)
under the Ecumenical Patriarch, expressing the unfortunately extreme ecumenist tenor of
the Patriarchate, but nevertheless insisting, as he so often expressed it, that charity
(ecumenical compromise, we might say) should never supersede the demands of Truth.
Moreover, his idea of ecumenism was that it should be nothing less than a statement of the
precepts of Apostolic Orthodoxy. He was a constant spokesman for the teaching of the
Patristic philosophy of the Church and saw in this philosophy the complete
Truth—indeed, the singularly unique Truth. Still, sadly enough, his very presence in
their ranks gave to certain ecumenists, who had gone beyond the bounds of the Orthodox
expression of ecumenical (that is, universal) truth and who advocated union with the
heterodox at the expense of the Truth recognized by Florovsky, the weight of his
influence. Indeed, his statements came to be misused and misunderstood and he failed at
elevating his conceptualization of Orthodox Truth beyond the realms of academic
philosophy.
Granted that Father Florovsky's most distinguished accomplishments were academic and
not wholly spiritual, those accomplishments were none the less impressive and deserve
acknowledgement. He taught in professorial posts (from assistant to full professor) at the
University of Odessa, the University of Prague, St. Sergius' Orthodox Theological
Institute, Columbia University, Union Theological Seminary, and the Holy Cross Greek
Orthodox Theological School. His most distinguished positions were at Harvard University
and at Princeton University. At Harvard he held the chair in Eastern Church history and
was proclaimed professor emeritus on retirement. Following his retirement from Harvard, he
went to Princeton and taught in the now defunct Slavic Studies program, in the Department
of Religion, and at the Princeton Theological Seminary. (It was at Princeton that he
died.) His first publication (in physiological psychology) was presented by Pavlov to the
Russian Royal Academy of Sciences; it was written in fluent English. He subsequently
published scores of articles and several books in history, theology, Patristics, and
philosophy, appearing in English, French, Swedish, Czech, German, Russian, and other
languages. An eminent scholar, a theologian, an historian, a philosopher, and a linguist,
Father Florovsky, if in no other way, through his academic eminence certainly brought
great honor to the Orthodox Church. Like a flower on an Icon, his academic honor surely
did not share in the essence of the spiritual tradition which he so adorned; but he added
to the beauty of Orthodoxy, bringing to her the respectful attention of those who might
have otherwise passed by the Eastern witness. Never consciously a missionary, his work was
still supremely evangelical in scope and effect.
The tragedy of Father Florovsky: the contradiction of superb Patristic scholarship and
a failure to express its application in strong witness; the paradox of a man expressing
Patristic humility in the context of compromising truth; and the sad image of a man
separated from the depth of what he studied, yet without question also in some way joined
to Orthodoxy in a profound way—all of these elements touch on a greater tragedy in
contemporary Orthodoxy. We see in many circles a "Patristic Renewal" or
"Patristic Revival," a return to the Fathers. Yet this return is not producing
the would-be Orthodoxy of old, fragrant with love, humility, and compassion most curiously
and paradoxically joined to commitment, steadfastness, and unwavering dedication to the
immutable truths of the Church. Rather, it is producing an unknown "Orthodoxy,"
divided between brain and heart. It is producing an Orthodoxy that knows well the message
of the Fathers in words and yet cannot join it mystically in practice to the needs of the
heart. This Orthodoxy is a cerebral Orthodoxy which does not compel man to draw on the
Fathers as the source of action (on their theory as a guide for practical spiritual life),
but which remains sterile and academic. It proffers theology without fasting, scholarship
without Liturgy, description without experience, theory without practice. And it
tragically leaves sincere scholars like Father Florovsky somewhere between the spiritual
and the mundane, between theology as the flower of practice and theology as a blossom
without roots. Father Florovsky's appearance, marked by his black rason and his blue
beret, perfectly expressed this tragedy. Clothed in the Church, his head was constantly
under the force of fashionable thought and academic reason.
In spite of the negative light in which some might wrongly think that his participation
in a merely academic Patristic tradition seems to place him, Father Florovsky was not an
example of the effete spirit of Patristic renewal. He was far more than those about whom
that might be said. To know his tragedy—indeed, to know him even in a limited
way—is to find something far deeper than our reason or judgment can reveal. For if we
fail to see more in him, so closely joined as he was to the very words of the Fathers,
then it is we who are foolish and effete. If he failed at finding the roots of practice
which nourished the flower of theology that he knew so well, it is we who often, knowing
the roots of practice, fail to produce and protect the sweet blossoms of compassion and
love. We must look at Father Florovsky in terms of a patristic reflection given to us in
the "Evergetinos." A certain elder saw, with his own eyes, a brother fall into a
serious sin. Not only did the elder not criticize him, but he wept and said to himself:
"He fell today and I certainly will tomorrow. But while he will no doubt repent, as
for myself I am not sure." If we fear for Father Florovsky, how much more we must
fear for ourselves!
ETERNAL MEMORY
Originally printed in The Orthodox Word, Vol. 16, No. 5
(94), pp. 237-242. See also: Fr.
Georges Florovsky, by the same author.
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