By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
On November 1, 2001, there reposed in Athens Father John Romanides, a foremost dogmatic theologian, who did a lot of research, theological and historical, and recorded its results in excellent books and articles, but presented them in oral traditions to his students and in various other audiences.
Honoring the memory of this great dogmatic teacher on the anniversary of his death, after 23 years, I compiled a summary of the book "An Outline Of Orthodox Patristic Dogmatics", which are Dogmatic lessons according to "student notes" at the beginning of his University teaching career, at the Theological School of Thessaloniki in 1971-1972, as I will explain below.
1. The "Student Notes"
Father John Romanides, as Professor of the Theological School of Thessaloniki, published in 1973 the first volume of the "Dogmatic and Symbolic Theology of the Orthodox Catholic Church", which is divided into two parts. The first part is general and refers to the Orthodox presuppositions of the dogmas of the Local and Ecumenical Synods and the second part presents the teachings of the First, Second and Eighth Ecumenical Synods about the Holy Trinity in contrast with the Franco-Latin tradition.
From the research I did, I can reasonably assume that this second part of his "Dogmatics", which refers to the teachings of the First, Second and Eighth Ecumenical Synods, is the material he had gathered for his doctoral thesis at Harvard under the supervision of Father George Florovsky, and ultimately did not submit it, due to Father George's retirement.
Unfortunately, he did not publish the next volume, as he announced, namely on Creation, on the Fall and Salvation, on Christology, Ecclesiology, Divine Grace, Divine Mysteries and Eschatology.
However, before the publication of the first volume of this "Dogmatics", when he began to teach lessons to the students of the Theological School of Thessaloniki, his student at the time and later a professor of the Theological School of Thessaloniki and my friend Mr. John Kogoulis, took notes from the Dogmatics course of Father John Romanides and published them in handwriting in 1972, under the title "Student Notes for Dogmatics, According to the Traditions of Professor Father John Romanides", for the help of himself and his fellow students, which satisfied Father John Romanides. Later (2016), the now Emeritus Professor of the University, John Kogoulis, published his notes, translated into the modern Greek language, by Kyriakidis publications, under the title: "An Outline of the Dogmatics of the Orthodox Catholic Church, According to the Traditions of Professor John Romanides".
I had these handwritten notes of Mr. John Kogoulis in my Archive, as they were given to me by the late lawyer Athanasios Sakarellos, to whom, apparently Father John Romanides gave them because of their friendship.
Later, in 2004, these student notes, which were approved by Father John Romanides, were published in a bilingual edition (Greek and English) by the Professor of Dogmatics at Holy Cross School of Theology in Boston, Father George Dragas, with the title: "An Outline of Orthodox Patristic Dogmatics". It is a succinct text in which one can glimpse the thought of its charismatic dogmatist, Father John Romanides, regarding the entirety of Dogmatics.
These notes are important, if one considers that they were written without the modern techniques (tape and video recorder) by a student, Mr. John Kogoulis, who had special gifts and a special appeal to the Dogmatic teaching of the Church.
I thought it good to present this text to the wide Greek readership in a concise summary, and I informed Mr. John Kogoulis of this. It is, indeed, a difficult task, because it is not easy to summarize the "Outline of Orthodox Patristic Dogmatics". In any case, this text being an outline of the teaching of Father John Romanides, when the outline is summarized, things get difficult. I present it, however, with the necessary note that surely in a succinct summary of the "Outline" it is possible to miss some key points. However, the basic theological thoughts of the patristic and dogmatic theologian Father John Romanides will be offered, and in a way, the non-publication of his complete "Dogmatics", which we all expected, will be made up for.
Of course, it should be understood that the text that will follow should be supplemented or contrasted by the reader with the two-volume work "Empirical Dogmatics" that I published based on the oral teaching of Father John Romanides, because in this way it will be seen that the "Dogmatics of the Orthodox Catholic Church" is an expression and formulation of the experience in Grace that the Prophets, the Apostles and the Fathers had, who were privileged to see the pre-incarnate and incarnate Word in the uncreated Light and through this they were initiated into the mystery of the Triune God. Thus, "Dogmatics" escapes the philosophical intellect of human thought.
PART TWO
