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Vimaorthodoxias · Aug 17 View source View full article on hyper.nooz.ai

Επίσκοπος Δρεμβίτσης Δαβίδ, Ι. Αρχιεπισκοπή Αχρίδος: Η ορθόδοξη θεολογία της ομορφιάς - Βήμα Ορθοδοξίας

🌐 Quote shown in the original Greek — English translation below

… μαθητής και πνευματικός διάδοχος του εξέχοντος δογματολόγου της εποχής μας, Νικόλαου Ματσούκα, φέρει βαθιά τη σφραγίδα της σκέψης του. Αξίζει να επισημανθεί ότι ο Σταμούλης σπούδασε επίσης μουσική και από το 1991 ηγείται της μικτής νεανικής χορωδίας και ορχήστρας «Άγιος Ιωάννης ο Χρυσόστομος» στη Θεσσαλονίκη. Σε τηλεοπτική του εμφάνιση, με τη χαρακτηριστική του εκφραστικότητα, είχε αυτοχαρακτηριστεί «διφυσίτης χαλκηδόνιος», υποδηλώνοντας ότι από τη μικρή του ηλικία συνυπάρχουν αρμονικά εντός του η θεολογική και η μουσική φύση σε ένα μοναδικό πρόσωπο.

Προσεγγίζοντας το πνεύμα του συγγραφέα, καθίσταται φανερό ότι με το βιβλίο του «Κάλλος το άγιον» αναδεικνύει ένα εξαιρετικά σημαντικό, πλην όμως συχνά λησμονημένο γεγονός: ότι η ορθόδοξη θεολογία στην εποχή μας καλείται σε έναν ειλικρινή διάλογο με τον κόσμο, τις τέχνες …

● Neutral · Chrysostomos Stamoulis
Sentiment: neutral

The quote is a self-description used to illustrate the speaker's dual nature of theology and music.
🇬🇧 English translation

Bishop David of Dremezia, I. Archbishopric of Achida: The Orthodox Theology of Beauty - Vima Orthodoxias

Bishop David of Dremezia: (Prologue to Professor Chrysostomos Stamoulis' book "Holy Beauty", published by the Holy Monastery of Hilandar, Mount Athos, 2026)

Note: The text was written before the repose of Prof. Ch. Stamoulis

In the Serbian theological and broader cultural scene, one of the most impressive works of modern dogmatic theology appears: the book "Holy Beauty" by Professor Chrysostomos Stamoulis, published by the Holy and Royal Monastery of Hilandar and translated into Serbian by Professor Zdravko Peno. The translator meticulously rendered the text into the Serbian language, taking into account the complexity of expression that characterizes the author in this work as well as in his numerous other works.

Chrysostomos Stamoulis is a Dean and Professor of Dogmatics at the Theological School of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, where he also completed his doctoral studies. He teaches the compulsory course of Dogmatic and Symbolic Theology, as well as elective compulsory courses such as "Philokalic Aesthetics of Orthodoxy", "Theology and Cinema", "Modern Atheism", and "Science and Orthodox Theology". In addition to Greece and England, he received theological education at the Orthodox Theological Faculty of Belgrade. As a student and spiritual successor of the outstanding dogmatist of our time, Nikolaos Matsoukas, he deeply bears the imprint of his thought. It is worth noting that Stamoulis also studied music and since 1991 has led the mixed youth choir and orchestra "Saint John Chrysostom" in Thessaloniki. In a television appearance, with his characteristic expressiveness, he had characterized himself as a "dyophysite chalcidonian," implying that from a young age, his theological and musical natures coexist harmoniously within a unique personality.

Approaching the author's spirit, it becomes evident that with his book "Holy Beauty," he highlights an extremely important, yet often forgotten fact: that Orthodox theology in our time is called to an honest dialogue with the world, the arts, and fellow human beings. He persuasively argues that it is not natural for theology to be limited to itself, trapped in a closed circle that turns it into a ghetto or—according to Matsoukas' phrase—a caricature that distances Theology from other sciences. As Professor Panagiotis Yfanitis points out, the value of the book lies precisely in the accurate diagnosis and addressing of the painful preconditions that generate pathological symptoms in the ecclesiastical organism. In certain ecclesiastical circles, moreover, it is not uncommon to consider that the Orthodox Christian should limit themselves exclusively to theological readings and ecclesiastical music. Such an undervaluation of the beautiful generates a neurotic and obsessive attitude toward the authentic needs of the human community, which sometimes takes the form of religious masochism and anti-sociality. Consequently, the nightmarish separation between theology and art constitutes another pathology that the present work heals. There are not a few people of the Church who stand bewildered before the artificial abyss that separates them from art, forgetting that from its first historical steps, the Church moved alongside it, identifying within it the manifest imprints of Truth. Finally, the book serves as a response to the formation of a claustrophobic spirituality, an introverted theology with eyes turned exclusively toward the past. The reader quickly perceives that the answers given are not theoretical, but experiential. The book shines by combining biblical and patristic literature with secular art, fishing for treasures from its sea of truths. Thus, it both responds to the requirements of a documented dogmatic research and justifies the dialogue between theological experience and the authentic expressions of modern art.

"Holy Beauty" deals with the relationship between Orthodoxy and beauty, the Byzantine heritage versus Western civilization, and the characteristics of Orthodox spiritual identity. The fertile opposition between the pro and contra West allows the author to engage with timely issues, such as the relationship of Orthodoxy with secular culture, and the balance between momentary dynamism and the permanence of Tradition. Through the questions and dilemmas posed, Stamoulis offers answers grounded in the Patristic tradition but also enriched by his own aesthetic experience. He speaks of the aesthetics of the incarnate Logos not as a moral-emotional fact, but as a paradox—after all, paradox is an inseparable feature of Orthodox holiness, which remains constantly open to surprise. As he himself points out, he does not bring something unprecedented, but grounds his discourse in the Patristic tradition itself.

The work embodies the search and the living experience of beauty, which is a timeless longing of man. It is articulated in three chapters. In the first part, the author converses with the views of Kostas Zourari, who tends to reject aesthetics outside the boundaries of the Eastern tradition, believing that there is nothing else beyond philokalia. According to Stamoulis, however, the era of omniscient authors has passed; what is required now is an open dialogue between theology, culture, and science, especially when the subject matter does not directly touch dogma and Christian ethics. Through this prism, he emphasizes that the absolute separation of East and West is ideological and inevitably leads to alienation and nihilism. Through a different reading of the Nobel laureate Giorgos Seferis (on whom Zourari seeks to rely), the author proves that philokalia and aesthetics are inextricably linked to the way of life of Eastern Christianity. Interpreting the experiences of Orthodox spirituality through the prism of aesthetics, Stamoulis opposes patterns that reject heterogeneity. Professor Ioannis Kourembeles argues that the reason he chooses the "Diary" of Protosyncellus Alexandros Smeiman is to highlight the distance between a bureaucratic theology and the living experience of an ascetically oriented person. Smeiman lived the truth of Orthodoxy in the West as a bearer of an ecclesiastical experience that could not conceive of the senses detached from mystical life. This specific text is chosen to show that one-sided perspectives in history—whether they concern the body or the spirit, asceticism or aesthetics—lead chronologically to heresies (such as Bogomilism) that maximize individual elements at the expense of unity. Paraphrasing Stamoulis, for Christian asceticism to be real and not an ideological caricature, it must be "aesthetic" asceticism; as must Christian mysticism. The ascetic and the mystic participate in the same Church. Consequently, neither the theology that insists on the beauty of the world nor anything concerning the whole should be lost. The crisis of Orthodoxy often consists in the rejection of every creative newness, in the perception of change as a threat to its identity. From here stems a deeper fear toward the fallen world rather than toward the falls of Orthodoxy itself. The first chapter concludes with the remarks of Nikos Matsoukas regarding the absence of theological exclusivity and the need for holistic theologizing, as at the heart of theology reigns unity and distinction, not division.

The culmination of beauty is revealed in Patristic theology as well as in literature, offering a privileged space for mutual encounter. In the second chapter, the meeting of different literary voices functions intertextually, revealing the depth of existential understanding that theology and great art can achieve together. The author delves into the ontology of Patristic philokalia and aesthetics, where the beautiful and the good converge in the preservation and cultivation of the communion of man with God. As Saint Dionysius the Areopagite proverbially points out, "that which participates in the beautiful is good...". For a serious dogmatist, the Patristic testimony remains non-negotiable. According to Saint Dionysius, beauty is not a simple attribute, but a Person; God is Beautiful, and therefore, Love. Traversing Patristic texts, Stamoulis highlights the teachings of Saint Gregory Palamas, Saint John Damascene, and Saint Maximus the Confessor, who are interested not in the fragmented, but in the whole person—soul and body—aiming not at necrosis, but at the transformation of the senses. The mission of Orthodoxy is to gather the dispersed into the universality of the Body of Christ, aiming for communion with the "One who is beautiful among the sons of men" (Psalm 45:11). Referring to Saint Cyril of Alexandria, he emphasizes that the loss of beauty is primarily equivalent to the loss of communion with the Holy Spirit and the Triune God. Under this prism, the reflections of Fyodor Dostoevsky are recruited—agreeing that "beauty will save the world"—as well as those of T. S. Eliot, who compresses time in the phrase "in my beginning is my end" and "in my end is my beginning." In the Orthodox tradition, theology is the art of experience, that art which reveals the beauty from the heavens. Art does not constitute a descendant of the Fall; depending on its quality, orientation, and degree of asceticism, it can contribute to the preservation of human integrity. Death cannot cancel aesthetic truth, because in Christ death has been defeated—a fact certified by the sight of the blind, the healing of the lepers, and the miraculous presence of holy relics. Thus, the ultimate desire is not an abstract unity, but communion in Christ.

In the third part, drawing from the teaching of Saint Sophrony (Sakharov) and the work of N. G. Pentzikis, Stamoulis demonstrates that philokalic aesthetics constitutes an authentic theology of beauty, where true art refers to the Creator who unifies universes. The book speaks of the beauty of God and Orthodoxy, proposing the integration of the genuine creations of the human spirit into our theological view, so that holiness appears more attractive and alive than sin. Freed from the fear of the East-West dichotomy, the author simultaneously reads the mystical theologian of the 20th century, Saint Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia, alongside the aesthetic theory of Theodor W. Adorno, adopting the principle that negation does not negate affirmation. Commenting on the modern fragmentation of theology, he repeats that the aesthetics of the incarnate Logos is a paradox and not a fragment; according to the astute observation of Ioannis Kourembeles, Stamoulis does not move the paradox selectively, but "here and there." In his work, every trace of apologeticism is absent, seeking instead to synthesize the nuances of Orthodoxy within the common denominator of the universal nature of God. His voice is not dogmatically dry, but open to all.

In the epilogue, with a title borrowed from the play "Our Town" by Thornton Wilder ("The Saints and the Poets, perhaps..."), the author addresses the reader, reminding him, via Saint Cyril of Alexandria, of the forgotten concept of surprise and the importance of small things, the fullness of which leads to the experience of "philokalic aesthetics." Saints and poets travel together, discovering the deep connection between true holiness and poetry. As the poet Kyriakos Charalampidis observes, the content of the book constitutes a revitalizing initiative and a "scandal" for formal theological thought and consolidated aesthetic dogmatism. Stamoulis "marries" philokalia with aesthetics in a documented way, making possible the meeting with saints and artists who embodied this relationship in their lives.

In one of his texts, "The Art of Theology and the Theology of Art," the author poses the question "what is art?", answering directly that art constitutes a connection with the beautiful both at the level of the created and at that of co-creation. Authentic art does not create without reason nor act without meaning; theology, as an art, expresses the personal communion of man with God and his neighbor, depicting the communion of the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity. Finally, invoking Philip Sherrard, he reminds us that the artist, as an image and in the likeness of the Archetypal Artist God, participates in divine energies, experiences revelation, and enlightens the world through his ethics and his creation.

In short, Orthodox theology has functioned detached from the beauty and the dimensions that it brings to existence. The present book restores this relationship, reconciling theology with art once again and revealing in its full scope the Orthodox theology of beauty.

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