The Early Eastern Orthodox Church ― A History, AD 60-1453

“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us,” the apostles declared at the conclusion of their council described in Acts 15. This apostolic council was the first of many councils to come as Christians sought to discern the will of God in the midst of historic challenges. The faithful continued to struggle to express their new apostolic faith in new words, new languages, new places and new times. Many issues—the interaction of science and faith, divinity and humanity, Church and State—continue to be pertinent today. This book tells the story of these struggles from the days of the New Testament to the fall of the city of Constantinople in AD 1453. It focuses on the Christian community in the eastern Mediterranean which eventually became known as the Byzantine Empire. Each chapter examines the personalities and theologies entwined at the heart of conflicts that shaped the medieval world as well as the modern cultures of Greece, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

Stephen Morris is an independent scholar who lives in New York City. He has studied Byzantine and medieval history and theology at Yale and St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Academy with Dr. John Boswell, Fr. Aidan Kavanaugh, Fr. John Meyendorff, and Fr. Alexander Schmemann. He has written on patristic preaching and exegesis as well as medieval and Byzantine hagiography.