Eastern Orthodox and Anglicans

Diplomacy, Theology, and the Politics of Interwar Ecumenism

Bryn Geffert

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN:
  9780268029753
• eBook ISBN:
  9780268080594
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Eastern Orthodox and Anglicans is the first sustained study of inter-Orthodox relations, the special role of the Anglican Church, and the problems of Orthodox nationalism in the modern age. Despite many challenges, the interwar years were a time of intense creativity in the Russian Orthodox Church. Russian émigrés, freed from enforced isolation in the wake of the Russian Revolution, found themselves in close contact with figures from other Orthodox churches and from the Roman Catholic Church and all varieties of Protestant confessions. For many reasons, Russian exiles found themselves drawn to the Anglican Church in particular. The interwar years thus witnessed a concentrated effort to bridge the gap between Orthodox and Anglican. Geffert's book is a detailed history of that effort. It is the story of efforts toward rapprochement by two churches and their ultimate failure to achieve formal unity. The same political, diplomatic, historical, personal, and religious forces that first inspired contact were the ones that ultimately undermined the effort. Bryn Geffert recounts the history of an important chapter in the history of Christian ecumenism, one that is relevant to contemporary efforts to achieve meaningful interfaith dialogue.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title page
• Copryight
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Transliteration
• Introduction
• 1. Nineteenth-Century Precedents
• 2. Outbreak of Ecumenism
• 3. The Roman Catholic Church
• 4. False Starts
• 5. Anglican Orders and Orthodox Politics
• 6. Jubilee, 1925
• 7. The Russian Student Christian Movement
• 8. The Prayer Book Crisis, 1927–1928
• 9. Lausanne, 1927
• 10. The Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius
• 11. Intercommunion and Sofiology
• 12. Lambeth, 1930
• 13. Bucharest, 1935–1936
• 14. Edinburgh, 1937
• 15. Internal Divisions
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index