St. Vladamir's Online School of Theology

This course is an introduction to reading the Fathers of the Church. We will first consider the ways in which early Christians articulated their faith by reworking doctrines, imagery, and exegetical, ascetical, and liturgical practices inherited from the rich and complex matrix of Second Temple Judaism. We will then look at the creative adoption and adaptation of the Greco-Roman cultural idiom, and the forging of an increasingly precise glossary of theological concepts to define doctrinal orthodoxy. The third and fourth sessions explore two of the most important avenues for understanding “the mind of the Fathers”: the patristic approach to the Scriptures and the Christology of Byzantine hymns.