Course Descriptions

(Dr. Jared Goff)

This course will encompass the development of Triadology, Christology, and Pneumatology from the Council of Chalcedon to the modern era. Students will develop an understanding of doctrinal development with an eye to practical application that may be used, applied, and relied upon as a guide in the contemporary Christian experience. Students of this course will engage the following:

• The ecclesiastical history in the aftermath of Chalcedon, especially the relevant works of Leontius of Byzantium and Leontius of Jerusalem.
• The relevant works of Severus of Antioch and formation of the miaphysite doctrine of Christ.
• The relevant works of Emperor Justinian I on Christology and the ecumenical councils from Constantinople II until Nicaea II.
• The relevant works of Sophronius of Jerusalem and of Maximus the Confessor.
• The principal works of the monothelites and dyothelites.
• The history of the iconoclast conflict and readings in the iconodule works of Damascene, along with the Christology and Pneumatology of Damascene as received in the late Byzantine period. The history of reception of Damascene into Latin Scholasticism and Greek Palamism.
• Modern problems in Triadology, Christology, and Pneumatology, including the essence & energies of God, knowledge of Christ and his beatific vision, and role of Holy Spirit in divinization.
• The joint declarations of Orthodox and Catholic churches on Christology.

Prerequisite: DT 103

(3 Credits)

(Fr. Justin Rose)

Pioneers, adventurers of the Spirit, eccentric and radically orthodox, the Desert Monastics continue to hold popular and scholarly imagination because of their lives, wise sayings, and living legacy. In the sayings and stories collected, copied, and preserved, we find passionate devotion to God and a revolutionary answer to the call of the Gospel to leave all and follow Christ. These monastics lived in a time of great transition for the Roman Empire and the Christian Church. This course relies heavily upon both primary and secondary reading with lecture and discussion to allow students to enter a world that is stark, foreign and unforgiving and yet rich and relevant even today.

(3 Credits)

(Fr. David Petras)

This course exclusively probes the Divine Liturgy of the Church within its historical and theological dimensions. Students will explore the origins and development of the Eucharistic Liturgy within Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition, engage in an exhaustive theological analysis of the Eucharistic Liturgy, and discuss modern-day challenges to the implementation of a liturgical theology that can profoundly affect daily life and inform one’s understanding of cosmic redemption and personal salvation. The expected outcomes for students are to:

• Acquire a thorough historical and theological understanding of the Divine Liturgy, thus assisting them in engaging in critical thinking and conversing intelligibly about the Liturgy in both an academic and parochial setting.
• Relate the Divine Liturgy to daily life and, specifically, to historical, anthropological, sociological, and spiritual realities lived by Christians
• Attain a level of proficiency with regard to liturgical language and concepts, needed in order to pursue research and further liturgical studies.
• Understand and express intelligibly the sacrificial and eschatological notions within the Eastern Church’s Eucharistic theology, as well as affirm their central importance for the liturgical life experienced by worshipping Christians.

 

Prerequisite:  LT 100; 3 credits

(Helenanne Hochendoner)

This introductory course examines the foundations for the study of the Bible. It will introduce methodologies like the historical-critical method as well as typology, allegory and other interpretive methods as well as a thoroughgoing introduction to the various genres of Scripture. The building blocks of Biblical work (academic as well as homiletic) will be achieved through a word study. Students of this course will develop the following skills:

• Read the Bible spiritually and historically as well as critically.
• Understand and explain the role of Scripture as witness to God’s revelation for both Old and New Testament communities.
• Identify important issues in contemporary Eastern Christian Biblical study.
• Begin to articulate the Catholic view of revelation, inspiration and canonicity.

(3 Credits)

The course focuses not only on the basic content of the Johannine writings (John’s gospel, his three letters and the book of Revelation) as well as touching on the historical issues beyond the Bible. Students will also develop the skills required to read, interpret, discuss and critically assess these passages in a manner appropriate to intelligent people of faith. Students pay particular attention to John’s unique perspective on the nature and person of the resurrected Jesus in order to enrich their understanding of Jesus in the early church as well as today. The course is intended to foster the students’ development of a personal, loving relationship with God, while at the same time providing a solid scriptural foundation for later pastoral ministry or academic study. Students in this course will develop the following skills:

• Reading Johannine literature spiritually and historically as well as critically.
• Understanding Johannine literature in its historical and theological context through an historical-critical lens as well as with the eyes of faith.
• Reading critically and writing about important issues in contemporary Eastern Christian Biblical study.
• Beginning to articulate the Catholic view of Johannine themes in the current context.

(3 Credits)

(Fr. Stelyios Muksuris)

This intensive two-semester course will immerse the student into the Hellenistic Greek language, the longest evolutionary phase of the most ancient language in the world still spoken today. Theology students will initially be introduced to the basics of the Biblical Greek language, such as the alphabet, grammar, syntax, and proper non-Erasmian pronunciation. Gradually, they will gain insights into the morphology of Koinē through exposure to simple and more complex vocabulary as studied in New Testament, liturgical, and patristic texts. A major emphasis in the course will be the development of proficient reading skills, as well as the capability to translate simple sentences and later, more complex structures and pericopes in ancient texts. The contextual history of the language and the linguistic mindset of the philosophically and theologically minded Greeks will likewise be studied in careful detail. A major objective of this course is to produce knowledgeable and well-rounded theologians and people of faith, all of whom will not only be conversant with relevant ancient texts of the Hellenistic era, but also capable of engaging in intelligible and fruitful dialogue with others.

(3 credits)

(Fr. Paul West)

This introductory course uses reading assignments, lectures, and class discussions to introduce students to the foundational themes of the spiritual life in the Byzantine Christian Tradition with special attention to the distinctive teachings of the Desert Fathers, of the ascetical writers, and from the Philokalia, and the Eastern Christian traditions that flowed from them. The major themes include creation in the divine image and likeness, life in the Trinity, the nature of the human person, deification, asceticism, and growth in the spiritual life. Students will be expected to develop at least a rudimentary ability to explain these concepts and terminology using the categories of contemporary culture, as well to recognize enough Latin spirituality in order to communicate “East to West,” and vice versa. By the end of the semester, students should be able:

• To explain the major concepts and themes common to the Catholic tradition of spiritual theology along with the capacity to articulate the major themes of Byzantine spiritual tradition;
• To describe in a general way the major concepts and themes found in patristic and early monastic writings;
• To begin to articulate, in a non-polemical way, the elements of a distinctively Byzantine Christian description of the spiritual life; this would include the ability to explain patristic ascetical psychological terms like “passions,” “apatheia,” “watchfulness,” and “thoughts” to a contemporary audience; to explain the created, fallen, and redeemed states of human nature using such categories as “the image and likeness of God,” “sin,” “repentance,” “regeneration,” and “deification;”
• To identify the Johannine and Pauline scriptural roots of the Byzantine doctrine of ‘theosis;’
• To explain the major concepts and terms of Greek patristic ascetical psychology.

(2 Credits)