Faith and Works. Preliminary project on a Orthodox Philocalic anthropology and soteriology

This study is an introductory outline of fundamental aspects of Orthodox soteriology and anthropology in critical comparison with the theological witness of Western Christianity (mainly Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism) in the light of the Neptic-hesychastic tradition of the Orthodox Church. Our attention is, thereby, focused on the longdisputed question regarding the relationship between faith and works (or, in an Orthodox-hesychastic vocabulary, “theoria” and “praxis”) in the mystery of justification and salvation in Christ. Nonetheless, in order to understand what is the real point at issue, our perspective is broadened to include the specific difference of the ecclesiastical perception of freedom, fall and redemption of human nature through the Cross of Christ from foreign theological or philosophical schemes. The aim is twofold: On the one hand, the articulation of an Orthodox doctrinal discourse on man and his redemption in Christ, deeply permeated by the Philocalic ethos of ascetical purification, illumination of the heart and glorification (deification) and, on the other hand, the critical refutation of the “modernist” attempt to replace the prophetic and apostolic witness to the mystery of man’s salvation in Christ with a “Christian” anthropology with a clearly free-thinking character.