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The Church of the Holy Spirit, written by Russian priest and scholar Nicholas Afanasiev (1893–1966), is one of the most important works of twentieth-century Orthodox theology. Afanasiev was a member of the “Paris School” of émigré intellectuals who gathered in Paris after the Russian revolution, where he became a member of the faculty of St. Sergius Orthodox Seminary. The Church of the Holy Spirit, which offers a rediscovery of the eucharistic and communal nature of the church in the first several centuries, was written over a number of years beginning in the 1940s and continuously revised until its posthumous publication in French in 1971.
Vitaly Permiakov's lucid translation and Michael Plekon's careful editing and substantive introduction make this important work available for the first time to an English-speaking audience.
“This is the first time that the classic work of Fr. Afanasiev, originally completed in 1950, has been published in English. Fr. Afanasiev joins a line of Orthodox theologians who attempt to understand the Church—that ‘subject which is not a subject,’ according to Fr. Schmemann—beyond the standard, canonical, approach. His voice, in this edition’s English, sounds timely even now.” —The Journal of Ecclesiastical History
Nikolay Nikolayevich Afanasiev (1893-1966) was an Eastern Orthodox theologian who was ordinary professor of the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris. Afanasiev was born in Odessa, in the Russian Empire. He fought with the White Russian Army, and then studied in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia before going to France. He lectured at St. Sergius for ten years before being ordained a priest in the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1940, whereupon he served in Tunisia until 1947. He then returned to St Sergius, where he served until his death.
Afanasiev's great contribution to Orthodox theology came in his conception of "eucharistic ecclesiology", in which he sought to derive the nature and theology of the church from the eucharistic assembly. His work was influential on Alexander Schmemann, John Meyendorff, Dumitru Stăniloae, and John Zizioulas.
Vitaly Permiakov received his M.Div. from St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and is a Ph.D. student in theology at the University of Notre Dame.
Michael Plekon is professor of sociology at Baruch College. He is the author of Living Icons: People of Faith in the Eastern Church (University of Notre Dame Press, 2002).