Theoria (Eastern Orthodox Christianity)

Russian Orthodox icon of the Transfiguration (Theophanes the Greek, ca. 1408).

Theoria (Greek θεωρία) is Greek for contemplation.

In Eastern Orthodox theology, theoria refers to a stage of illumination on the path to theosis in which one beholds God. Theosis is obtained by engaging in contemplative prayer resulting from the cultivation of watchfulness (Gk: nepsis). In its purest form, theoria is considered as the 'beholding', 'seeing' or 'vision' of God.

Theoria is also defined as 'the perception of beauty regarded as a moral faculty' (OED). Theoria is thus possible because God is in the universe (material world), as evidenced by the beauty contained therein.

Etymology

The word comes from the Greek language and is derived from the same root as the English word theory. Theoria is used to express the experience of life as "one who comprehends by watching a play or activity", the state of "being" is defined as spectator. The act of experiencing or observing and then comprehending through consciousness is called the nous or "eye of the soul" (Matthew 6:22–6:34). Insight into being and becoming (called Noesis) through the intuitive truth called faith, in God (action through faith and love for God), leads to truth through our contemplative faculties. This theory, or speculation, as action in faith and love for God, is then expressed famously as "Beauty shall Save the World". This expression comes from a mystical or gnosiological perspective, rather than a scientific, philosophical or cultural one.

Theoria in Eastern Orthodox Christianity

According to the teachings of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, the quintessential purpose and goal of the Christian life is to attain theosis or 'deification', understood as 'likeness to' or 'union with' God.

Theosis results from leading a pure life, practicing restraint and adhering to the commandments, putting the love of God before all else. This metamorphosis (transfiguration) or transformation results from a deep love of God. Saint Isaac the Syrian says that "Paradise is the love of God, in which the bliss of all the beatitudes is contained," and that "the tree of life is the love of God" (Homily 72). Theoria is thus achieved by the pure of heart who are no longer subject to the afflictions of the passions. It is a gift from the Holy Spirit to those who, through observance of the commandments of God and ascetic practices (see praxis, kenosis, Poustinia and schema), have achieved dispassion. According to the standard ascetic formulation of this process, there are three stages: katharsis or purification, theoria or illumination, and theosis or deification (also referred to as union with God).

Purification precedes conversion and constitutes a turning away from all that is unclean and unwholesome. This is a purification of mind and body. As preparation for theoria, however, the concept of purification in this three part scheme refers most importantly to purification of consciousness (nous), the faculty of discernment and knowledge (wisdom) whose awakening is essential to coming out of the state of delusion that is characteristic of the worldly-minded. After the nous has been cleansed the faculty of wisdom may then begin to operate more consistently. With a purified nous, clear vision and understanding becomes possible, making one fit for contemplative prayer.

In the Eastern Orthodox ascetic tradition called hesychasm, humility, as a saintly attribute, is called Holy Wisdom or sophia. Humility is the most critical component to mankind's salvation. Following Christ's instruction to "go into your room or closet and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret" (Matthew 6:6) the hesychast withdraws into solitude in order that he or she may enter into a deeper state of contemplative stillness. By means of this stillness the mind is calmed and the ability to see reality is enhanced. The practitioner seeks to attain what the apostle Paul called 'unceasing prayer'.

Degrees of prayer

In Eastern Orthodox tradition recognizes three degrees of prayer: (1) Ordinary oral prayer, as is practiced in church or at home; (2) prayerful thoughts and feelings united with the mind and heart; and (3) unceasing prayer, also known as 'Prayer of the Heart':

"...the heart is warmed by concentration so that what hitherto has only been thought now becomes feeling. Where first it was a contrite phrase now it is contrition itself; and what was once a petition in words is transformed into a sensation of entire necessity. Whoever has passed through action and thought to true feeling, will pray without words, for God is God of the heart. So that the end of apprenticeship in prayer can be said to come when in our prayer we move only from feeling to feeling. In this state reading may cease, as well as deliberate thought...When the feeling of prayer reaches the point where it becomes continuous, then spiritual prayer may be said to begin...Without inner spiritual prayer there is no prayer at all, for this alone is real prayer, pleasing to God.

Prayer of the Heart is often associated with a highly-venerated and widely-esteemed prayer in Eastern Orthodox spirituality called The Jesus Prayer. The Jesus Prayer has long been used in hesychastic asceticism as an invaluable spiritual tool to aid the practitioner to bring about the unceasing, wordless prayer of the heart that St. Theophan describes. One important way the Jesus Prayer does this is to invoke an attitude of humility essential for attainment of theoria. The Jesus Prayer is also invoked to pacify the passions and the illusions that lead a person to express these passions through action. The mind is habitually accustomed to seek what is perceived as beneficial to the soul and avoid what is perceived as bad or evil for it. This state of incessant agitation of the mind is attributed to the corruption of the primordial knowledge and union with God. This corruption was brought about by the Fall of Man, which resulted in the defilement and corruption of consciousness (nous).

The long association between the Jesus Prayer and the Prayer of the Heart has led to the mistaken notion that they are actually synonymous. That is not correct, according to St. Theophan the Recluse.

Theological traditions

Icon of the Transfiguration

Alexandrian tradition of theoria

Theoria is the knowledge of God in creation and of sensible things and thus their contemplation intellectually to the Origen or Alexandrian school of thought (150–400AD) (see Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Evagrius Ponticus). This knowledge and contemplation then leads to communion with God akin to Divine Providence.

Cappadocian tradition of theoria

In the Cappadocian school of thought (see Saint Basil, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, and Saint Gregory Nazianzus) (350–400AD), theoria is the experience of the highest or absolute truth when one is in complete union with God. It is entering the 'Cloud of Unknowing' which is beyond rational understanding, and can be embraced only in love of God (Agape or Awe). The Cappadocian fathers went beyond the intellectual contemplation of the Alexandrian fathers. This was to begin with the seminal work Philokalia, which, through hesychasm, leads to Phronema and finally theosis, which is validated by theoria. One must move beyond gnosis to faith (meta-gnosis). Through ignorance, one moves beyond knowledge and being, this contemplation being theoria. Theoria means understanding that the Uncreated cannot be grasped by the logical or rational mind, but only by the whole person (unity of heart and mind); this perception is that of the nous. God was knowable in his manifestations, but ultimately, one must transcend knowledge or gnosis (since knowledge is based on reflection) because gnosis is limited and can become a barrier between man and God. If one wishes to commune with God, one must enter into the Divine filial relation with God the Father through Jesus Christ, one in ousia with the Father, which results in pure faith without any preconceived notions of God. At this point, one can commune with God just as Moses did.

Dionysius the Areopagite's Apophaticism

In the tradition of St. Dionysus the Areopagite, theoria is the lifting up of the individual out of time, space and created being, also known as ekstasis, while the Triune God reaches down, or descends, to the hesychast. The individual is brought into the presence of the hypostasises of God in what is called the 8th day.

One cultivates the highest form of contemplation and the experience of the 8th day by attending the Orthodox liturgical services. The services are the applications of the sacraments, and the person has a perspective of sincere mortification. Memento mori is salvation through the grace or acceptance of God in death. This liturgical experience is the only way for a human being to attain the true knowledge of the living God; it is the vision of God or theoria to the apophatic theology of the St. Dionysian tradition within Eastern Orthodoxy. Again, God can be known in his immanence (kataphatic) or realities, but not in God's apophatic or transcendent essence, since God is uncreated in his essence or being.

St Macarius of Egypt

In the theological tradition of St Macarius of Egypt (ca. 300–391AD), theoria is the point of interaction between God and the Human Person in the heart of the person (manifesting spiritual gifts to the human heart).

The highest form of contemplation originates in the heart (see agape), a form of contemplation that is higher than that of the intellectual mind. What is consistent is the concept that Theoria is alloted to each unique individual by their capacity to comprehend God. This is also the tradition of theoria, as taught by St Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022AD), that one can not be a theologian unless one sees the hypostases of God or the uncreated light. Such an experience cultivates humility and meekness in people and, most of all, the love of the human race that the Triune God has created. This invisible fire in the heart for humanity is manifest in absolute kindness and love for their neighbor akin to selfless humility, agape or love, growing from mortification, kenosis, or epiclesis. This agape (invisible, holy fire) is the essence of Orthodoxy.

The Hesychast controversy

Under St Gregory Palamas (1296–1359AD), the different traditions of theoria were synthesized into an understanding of theoria that, through baptism, one receives the Holy Spirit. Through participation in the sacraments of the Church and the performance of works of faith, one cultivates a relationship with God. If one then, through willful submission to God, is devotional (becomes humble), akin to the Theotokos (and the saints), and proceeds in faith past the point of rational contemplation, one can experience God. Palamas stated that this way was not a mechanized process, as each person is unique, but that the apodictic way that one experiences the uncreated light (God) was through contemplative prayer called hesychasm. Theoria is cultivated through each of the steps of the growing process of theosis.

Gregory was initially asked by his fellow monks on Mount Athos to defend them from the charges of Barlaam of Calabria. Barlaam believed that philosophers had a better knowledge of God than did the prophets, and valued education and learning more than contemplative prayer. It is important to note that Palamas taught that the truth is a person (Jesus Christ), a form of objective reality. In order for a Christian to be authentic, he/she must experience the Truth (i.e. Christ), as real and in person (see hypostasis). Gregory further asserted that when Peter, James and John witnessed the transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor, they were, in fact, seeing the uncreated light of God, and that it is possible for others to be granted to see that same uncreated light of God, with the help of certain spiritual disciplines and contemplative prayer.

The only true way to experience Christ, according to Palamas, was the Eastern Orthodox faith. Once a person discovers Christ (through the Orthodox church), they begin the process of theosis, which is the gradual submission to the Truth (i.e. God) in order to be deified (theosis). Theoria is seen to be the experience of God hypostatically (in person). However, since the essence of God is unknowable, it also cannot be experienced. Palamas expressed theoria as an experience of God as it happens to the whole person (soul or nous), not just the mind or body, in contrast to an experience of God that is drawn from memory, the mind, or in time. Gnosis and all knowledge are created, as they are derived or created from experience and self-awareness knowledge (spiritual knowledge). Theoria here is the actual experience of the uncreated in various degrees (i.e. the vision of God or to see God). The experience of God in the 8th day or outside of time, therefore, transcends the self and experiential knowledge (gnosis). Gnosis is most importantly understood as a knowledge of oneself; theoria is the experience of God, transcending the knowledge of oneself. St. Gregory Palamas died on November 14, 1359; his last words were, "To the heights! To the heights!" He is commemorated on the Second Sunday of Great Lent because Gregory's victory over Barlaam is seen as a continuation of the Triumph of Orthodoxy (i.e., the victory of the Church over heresy).

Writings

Theoria appears in a variety of contexts.

• "The Lord considered the chief good to reside in theoria alone." St John Cassian [19]
  • Jesus, referred to here as "the Lord", states that "None is good but God alone" (Luke 18:19). Theoria is not God, per se, but is rather the union we hope to attain with God; the term is used relationally here, otherwise the sentence would say "reside in God alone". Theoria marks a relational and noetic understanding.

• "St. Maximus goes on to say that man is 'granted the grace of theology when, carried on wings of love" in theoria and 'with the help of the Holy Spirit, he discerns - as far as this is possible for the human nous - the qualities of God'."

• "St. Thalassios wrote that when man's nous begins with simple faith, it 'will eventually attain a theology that transcends the nous and that is characterised by unremitting faith of the highest type and the vision of the invisible'".

• "[T]he other virtues, although we consider them necessary and useful and good, are to [be] accounted secondary because they are all practiced for the purpose of obtaining this one thing: theoria" (ibid).
  • Here the term is used to mark that which we hope to obtain or attain, for which all practice of faith is carried out. Theoria is a marker for the goal of union with God.

• "We accept faith by hearing it not so that we can understand it rationally, but that our hearts may be cleansed, that, by theoria, we may attain faith and ultimately experience the Revelation of God." [20]
  • This may be a less clear use of the term, but it refers to the idea that faith is a gift, not purely a rational act. The gift of faith is from God, and here the word theoria indicates that special provenance.

• "In the Holy Scripture it appears that faith comes by hearing the Word and by experiencing theoria (the vision of God)" (ibid).
  • In this example, theoria is indicated to be an experience and a vision of God. Vision of God often implies advanced mystical experience, not given to all, and not necessary for salvation, but in the foregoing examples, theoria is used to mark the onset of faith and the source of faith. Theoria is, then, a broad term.

• "[T]he disciples of Christ acquired the knowledge of the Triune God in theoria (vision of God) and by revelation" (ibid).
  • Here the term clearly refers to advanced mystical experiences some disciples had in the company of Jesus.

• "[T]heoria, vision and theosis are closely connected. Theoria has various degrees. There is illumination, vision of God, and constant vision (for hours, days, weeks, even months)" (ibid).
  • Here we see clearly that the term has broad application. The onset of faith as well as more advanced experiences are referred to as theoria. The term, then, implies a source of religious experience from onset to advanced stages, and suffuses the understanding of religious knowledge with a contemplative essence.

• "They [Latin and Protestant] are influenced by the philosophical dialectic, which has been surpassed by the Revelation of God" (ibid).
  • Orthodox sources maintain that the meanings implied in theoria are fundamentally absent from Western traditions, which they consider to have been misguided by scholasticism to the point that they abandon the faith of the Church Fathers and all hope of being therapeutically relevant to followers.

• "St. Gregory the Theologian says that theoria and praxis are beneficial because theoria ... guides him to the holy of holies and restores him to his original nature; whereas praxis receives and serves Christ and tests love with actions. Clearly, theoria is the vision of God.... [P]raxis is whatever deeds it takes to lead to this love." [21]
  • Theoria is the source or means of growth toward union with God, praxis is the faith practiced along the way, theosis is the overall path or journey, and phronema is the understanding of Christian faith that guides the follower of Christ.

• He prays with his body alone, and not yet with spiritual knowledge. But when the man once blind received his sight and saw the Lord, he acknowledged Him no longer as the Son of David but as the Son of God, and worshipped Him' (John 9:38).'

St Symeon the New Theologian, Philokalia, Vol.4.

Ontological or Trinitarian Theology

The highest theoria, the highest consciousness, as the experience by the whole person, is the vision of God. A nous in a state of ecstasy (ekstasis), called the 8th day, is not internal or external to the world, outside of time and space; it experiences the infinite and limitless God. God is beyond being (hyper-being); God is beyond nothingness. Nothingness is a gulf between God and man (God is the origin of everything, including nothingness). This experience of God in hypostasis shows God's essence as incomprehensible, or, by definition, God as uncreated. God is the origin, but has no origin; hence, he is apophatic and transcendent in essence or being, and cataphatic in foundational realities, immanence and energies. This ontic or ontological Theoria is the observation of God.

False spiritual knowledge

Theoria does not manifest a false spiritual knowledge, like incomplete knowledge akin to human rationalization as either conjecture or speculation, like that which may be arrived at through rational thought (dianoia) or rational speculation (Stochastic and or dialectics).

False spiritual knowledge can also be iniquitous or of an evil origin, generated from an evil rather than holy source. The gift knowledge of Good and the knowledge of Evil is then required: some knowledge is good, and some knowledge is bad or evil. The most common false spiritual knowledge is derived not from an actual experience of God, but from reading another person's experience of God and subsequently arriving at one's own conclusions, believing those conclusions equal to the actual experienced knowledge (then causing a conflict in interpretations). Knowledge is derived from experience (i.e. contemplation), but experience is not derived from knowledge. Knowledge is here defined by the change in mankind's nous caused by partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Since mankind, in his finite existence (mankind is a created being or creature), can never, by his own accord, arrive at a sufficiently objective consciousness, in order to properly apply such knowledge. Theosis is the gradual submission of man to the good, who then with Divine grace from his relationship or union with God, attains deification. Illumination restores mankind to that state of faith existent in God called noesis before mankind's consciousness and reality was changed by his fall. After illumination or theoria, mankind is in union with God and can now properly discern (have Holy Wisdom). Hence theoria, the experience or Vision of God, silences all flesh.

Spiritual somnolence

False spiritual knowledge leads to spiritual delusion (Russian prelest, Greek plani), which is the opposite of sobriety. Sobriety (nepsis) means full consciousness and self-realization (enstasis), giving true spiritual knowledge (true gnosis). Prelest or plani is the estrangement of the person to existence or objective reality (what is real or true), an alienation called amartía. This includes damaging or vilifying the nous or simply having a non-functioning noetic and neptic faculty.

Evil is, by definition, to turn mankind against its creator and existence. Misotheism, a hatred of God, is a catalyst that separates mankind from nature, or vilifies the various realities of ontology, the spiritual world, and the natural or material world. Reconciliation between God (the uncreated) and man is reached through submission in faith to God the eternal (i.e. transcendence) rather than transgression (magic).

The Trinity as Nous, Word and Spirit (hypostasis) is, ontologically, the basis of mankind's being or existence. The Trinity is the creator of mankind's being via each component of mankind's existence: origin as nous (ex nihilo), inner experience or spiritual experience, and, finally, physical experience, which is exemplified by Christ (logos or the uncreated prototype of the highest ideal) and his saints. The following of false knowledge is marked by the symptom of somnolence or "awake sleep" and, later, psychosis.

Theoria is in contrast to allegorical or symbolic interruptions of church traditions.

False asceticism or cults

Once the stage of true discernment (diakrisis) is reached (called phronema), one is able to distinguish false from valid gnosis and has holy wisdom. The highest holy wisdom, Sophia, or Hagia Sophia is cultivated by humility or meekness, akin to that personified by the Theotokos and all of the saints that came after her and Christ (collectively referred to as the ecclesia or church). This community of unbroken witnesses is the Orthodox Church.

Sophia is cultivated by humility (emptying of oneself) and remembrance of death against thymos (ego, greed and selfishness) and the passions. Practicing asceticism is being dead to the passions and the ego, also known as the world.

God is beyond knowledge and the fallen human mind, and, as such, can only be experienced in his hypostases through faith (noetically). False ascetism leads not to reconciliation with God and existence, but toward a false existence based on rebellion to existence.

True spiritual knowledge

See also: Degrees of Eastern Orthodox monasticism

The Great Schema worn by Orthodox monks and nuns of the most advanced degree.

Theoria is beyond conceptual knowledge. It is the state in which the mind is placed in the heart (kardio) and the nous is focused on the immediacy or immanence of the Trinity of God rather than strictly insight or foresight (which is to face the unknown with free will and faith) and rather than hindsight (determinism and knowledge). It is much like the difference between reading about the experience of another and reading about one's own experience. Thus, theoria is an expression of insight (noesis), and is deeply focused on the 'now', the 'immediate', and the 'present'. Though theoria is akin to acting by free will and by conscious choice rather than deterministically, it holds that one moves through time into the future without knowing, but proceeds by faith (faith is meta-gnosis or beyond knowledge). Theoria means placing the actual experience above the recollection of an experience (mnemonic) or memory. As it is the contemplation of the present (insight) while in the present, rather than the past (knowledge) or future (unknown), it is ultimately the experience of the hypostases of God. In other words, Theoria places primacy of experience and observation over a speculative, discursive, rational analysis (Orthodox Empirical theology). This illumination is photismos, a light that permeates all things and is without source, a light that illuminates not only the physical world, but also the darkness within mankind; this light is also called the Tabor light. The Trinity is the three realities of the single God at once. Each reality or hypostasis is critical to the ontology of being (ousia).

Theoria in western traditions

See also: beatific vision and Catholic-Orthodox theological differences

Theoria covers a broad range of inherent Western Christian concepts that are treated separately in Catholic tradition. These concepts include:

• God is the source wherein lies the Chief Good.
• The hope for the union with God to which all Christians are called, is pursued through contemplation and action.
• There is a connection between incipient faith and advanced prayer life.
• For the faith, our redemption by Jesus is a restoration of supernatural goodness and innocence lost through sin.
• Theology cannot be divorced from prayer.

There is no conclusive term in common use in the Western tradition, but, like the Eastern tradition, everything is rooted in the universal Christian understanding that the risen Christ lives in us and that we participate in His life.

Theological discrepancies between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity

Further information: History of the Eastern Orthodox Church

In the Eastern Christian traditions, theoria is the most critical component needed for a person to be considered a theologian, however, it is not necessary for one's salvation. Theoria is being with God, in Eastern Christianity, the one thing that mankind truly desires the most, that which is infinite (apophatic or transcendent) and also personal and real (cataphatic or immanent). God is ever new, never ending love, happiness, joy and bliss as is glory to glory. An experience of God is necessary to the spiritual and mental health of each and every created thing, including human beings.

Deification

See also: Essence-Energies distinction

Theosis is expressed as having "Being with God" and a relationship (God is Heaven, God is the Kingdom of Heaven) that is infinite and unending, glory to glory. Since God is transcendent (incomprehensible in ousia, essence or being), the West has over-emphasized its point by qualifying logical arguments that God cannot be experienced in this life. This criterion is at the very heart of many theological conflicts between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Western Christianity, which is seen to culminate in the conflict over hesychasm. This is expressed in the idea that Western theology is too dependent upon logic and reason (culminating in scholasticism used to validate truth and the existence of God, which it cannot be done completely) over establishing an actual relationship with God (theosis and theoria).

Heaven and hell

Another such example that is often used in Eastern Christianity is the example of St Augustine. From the works of Saint Augustine, it is apparent to Eastern theologians that, though a Saint, Augustine did not have theoria, and many of his theological conclusions appear not to come from experiencing God and writing about his experiences of God. Rather, they appear to be the result of philosophical or logical speculation and conjecture. Hence, Augustine is still revered as a saint, but does not qualify as a theologian in the Eastern Orthodox church. Some of Augustine's Trinitarian conclusions appear to immanentize characteristics of theology that would be improper treatment of those things divine. Eastern theologians, in light of their experiences, would articulate their expressions of those things differently. Augustine's treatment of the inner relationship of the realities of God in Trinity and how God has manifest to mankind throughout time are, as such, an overview.

Finally, the theological concept of hell or eternal damnation, also via theoria, is expressed completely different in the West. Hell in the West is a created place of damnation, this being taught most explicitly in Dante's classic work Inferno. The East teaches that hell, or eternal damnation, and heaven are the same place, which is being with God. For one who hates God, to be in the presence of God eternally would be the gravest suffering.

See also

• Apodicticity
• Apotheosis
• Archimandrite Sophrony
• Argument from beauty
• Aseity
• Diodore of Tarsus
• Eastern Orthodox Christian theology
• Holy Fire
• Father John Meyendorff
• Father John S. Romanides
• Meditation
• Father Michael Pomazansky
• Mystical theology, Mysticism
• noema
• Praxis
• Religious experience
• Sacred Mysteries
• Saint Ambrose of Optina
• sobornost
• tacit knowledge
• Transfiguration of Christ

Quotes

"We ought at all times to wait for the enlightenment that comes from above before we speak with a faith energized by love; for the illumination which will enable us to speak. For there is nothing so destitute as a mind philosophising about God, when it is without Him'." Of "Spiritual Knowledge" Discourse number 7 Philokalia volume 1 p 254 – St Diadochos of Photiki

"Unless the heart be cleansed it is impossible to attain real contemplation. Only a heart purified of passion is capable of that peculiar awe and wonder before God which stills the nous into joyful silence." Archimandrite Sophrony

"The question of the vision of God, not only among Byzantine Theologians of the fourteenth century but also in earlier history, especially among the Greek Fathers, presents serious difficulty for those who want to study it from the standpoint of the concepts appropriate to Latin scholasticism." Vladimir Lossky The Vision of God p 20.

Bibliography

• The Vision of God by Vladimir Lossky, SVS Press, 1997. (ISBN 0-913836-19-2)
• The Spirituality of the Christian East: A systematic handbook by Tomáš Špidlík, Cistercian Publications Inc Kalamazoo Michigan 1986 (ISBN 0-87907-879-0)
• The Macarian Legacy: The Place of Macarius-Symeon in the Eastern Christian Tradition (Oxford Theological Monographs 2004) by Marcus Plested (ISBN 0199267790)
• Being With God by Aristotle Papanikolaou University of Notre Dame Press February 24, 2006 ISBN 0268038309
• The Experience of God : Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God (Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, Volume 1 : Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God) by Dumitru Staniloae Holy Cross Orthodox Press May 17, 2005 ISBN 0917651707
• The Experience of God : Orthodox Dogmatic Theology Volume 2: (The World, Creation and Deification) by Dumitru Staniloae Holy Cross Orthodox Press June 16, 2005 ISBN 1885652410
• THE ILLNESS AND CURE OF THE SOUL by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos Publisher: Birth of Theotokos Monastery,Greece (January 1, 2005) ISBN 9607070186 ISBN 978-9607070180
• Reading scripture with the Church Fathers By Christopher A. Hall Published by InterVarsity Press, 2001 ISBN 0830815007, 9780830815005
• THE ILLNESS AND CURE OF THE SOUL by Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos Publisher: Birth of Theotokos Monastery,Greece (January 1, 2005) ISBN 9607070186 ISBN 978-9607070180 [22]

External links

• Eastern Orthodoxy - OCA
• Eastern Orthodoxy - GOA
• Differences between Orthodoxy and other religions
• Gregory Palamas' fight for the Vision of God
• Theoria, Tabor Light as Vision
• What is the Human Nous? by John Romanides
• Theoria