Papers by Fr. Maximos Constas
Tra lagune e il mare, 2026
A paper from the forthcoming volume, Tra la laguna e il mare: la chiesa e il monastero di San Nic... more A paper from the forthcoming volume, Tra la laguna e il mare: la chiesa e il monastero di San Nicolo del Lido, Convegno internazionale di studi, Venezia 26-28 maggio 2025, ed. Martina Frank, Gianmario Guidarelli, and Myriam Pilutti Namer.
John Geometres, Life of the Virgin Mary, 2023
Mary Cunningham, book review of John Geometres, Life of the Virgin Mary, in the Dumbarton Oaks Me... more Mary Cunningham, book review of John Geometres, Life of the Virgin Mary, in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series (2023), by Maximos Constas and Christos Simelidis.
A talk given at the June 2024 conference on Christian Education, sponsored by the Antiochian Arch... more A talk given at the June 2024 conference on Christian Education, sponsored by the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America and held at the Antiochian House of Studies.
St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 67.1-2, pp. 199-215., 2023
This is a book review essay on four recent English translations of the Psalter (LXX). (Please not... more This is a book review essay on four recent English translations of the Psalter (LXX). (Please note that these are uncorrected page proofs.)
John Geometres, Life of the Virgin Mary, 2023
The Introduction (pp. vii-xxvii) and Note on the Text (pp. 379-390) from our edition and translat... more The Introduction (pp. vii-xxvii) and Note on the Text (pp. 379-390) from our edition and translation of John Geometres, _Life of the Virgin Mary_, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 77 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023).
Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxa
The rise of digital culture has created both tremendous human possibilities as well as tremendous... more The rise of digital culture has created both tremendous human possibilities as well as tremendous challenges and problems. Powerful corporate and commercial interests compete for our attention, which has become a valuable commodity in the online world. Living in a culture of organized distractions, human awareness is fragmented, causing us to lose touch with ourselves, our neighbors, the world around us, and God. This paper explores the traditional ascetic practice of attention and watchfulness which it recommends as a counterweight to modern cultural, psychological, and spiritual fragmentation. The principal sources under consideration are drawn from the Philokalia, a collection of writings devoted to the practice of "attending to oneself."
St Paul's Ascent to Heaven (2 Cor 12:1-10) in the Byzantine Theological Tradition, 2023
A study of St Paul's ascent/rapture into heaven in the Byzantine theological tradition published ... more A study of St Paul's ascent/rapture into heaven in the Byzantine theological tradition published in _Hierotopy of Air and Heaven in Christian Culture_, ed. Alexey Lidov (Moscow: Indrik, 2023). This study makes use of material from my "The Reception of Paul and Pauline Theology in Byzantium" and "Symeon of Thessaloniki and the Theology of the Icon Screen." Those interested in the material from Geometres cited in the present article may now consult the critical edition and translation (Constas and Simelidis, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library).
"There was not a needy person among them" (Acts 4:34): An Essay on St Basil's Social Concerns", 2022
Maximos Constas, "There was not a needy person among them" (Acts 4:34): An Essay on St Basil's So... more Maximos Constas, "There was not a needy person among them" (Acts 4:34): An Essay on St Basil's Social Concerns," The Journal of Malankara Orthodox Theological Studies (Kerala, India) 7.2 (July-December, 2022): 7-14.
"I Have No Other Hope But You.": Prayers to the Virgin Attributed to St Ephrem the Syrian," St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 66.3-4 (2022): 73-100, 2022
This is a study of a series prayers to the Virgin attributed to Ephrem the Syrian, which I transl... more This is a study of a series prayers to the Virgin attributed to Ephrem the Syrian, which I translated and published in 2018 (_Mother of the Light: Prayers to the Theotokos_. NewRome Press, 2018). Among the findings is the restoration of two prayers in the collection (Prayers I, XI) to the fourteenth-century writer Philotheos Kokkinos.
The Theology of the Icon
Forthcoming in _The Icon_, ed. Charles Barber (Cambridge University Press)
John Geometres, Life of the Virgin Mary, 2023
John Geometres (ca. 935 - ca. 1000) was one of the most highly esteemed poets and authors of the ... more John Geometres (ca. 935 - ca. 1000) was one of the most highly esteemed poets and authors of the middle Byzantine period. His most important work, the Life of the Virgin Mary, is a literary and theological masterpiece which has long been inaccessible to readers. (A later paraphrase of this Life was mistakenly thought by some to be an original work written by Maximos the Confessor, but is in fact a later Georgian-language modification by Euthymios the Athonite of the Life by Geometres.) This volume contains a critical edition of the Greek text, a complete English translation, a detailed introduction and many hundreds of footnotes and annotations. The volume is scheduled to appear in late April or early May 2023.
The Routledge Handbook of Mt Athos, 2022
This is an article on Athonite saints and elders that will be published in the Routledge Handbook... more This is an article on Athonite saints and elders that will be published in the Routledge Handbook of Mt Athos. I am grateful to my teaching assistant, Anthony Ladas, for his assistance with the section on Athonite Martyrs, which is the focus of his Masters Thesis, which he is writing under my direction.
Icons of Space: Advances in Hierotopy, 2021
A study of the forms and functions of sacred space in the Life of Symeon the New Theologian (ca. ... more A study of the forms and functions of sacred space in the Life of Symeon the New Theologian (ca. 949-1022) by Niketas Stethatos.
The Light of the World: Prayers to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, 2020
The Light of the World (a companion volume to Mother of the Light: Prayers to the Theotokos) is a... more The Light of the World (a companion volume to Mother of the Light: Prayers to the Theotokos) is a collection of 35 patristic and Byzantine prayers to Christ. The introduction contains two lengthy excerpts on prayer (one attributed to St John Chrysostom, the other written by Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra), along with my own introductory remarks. The volume is available from Newrome Press.
Made for Union: The Sacramental Theology of St Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain, 2020
This is the Foreword to _Made for Union: The Sacramental Theology of St Nikodemos of the Holy Mo... more This is the Foreword to _Made for Union: The Sacramental Theology of St Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain_ by Fr George Dokos, a specialist on the theology of St Nikodemos and a translator of many of his works. This is the first study of St Nikodemos's sacramental theology to appear in English. (Full bibliographical information appears at the end of the document.)
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An overview of patristic and Byzantine biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, covering exegetical ge... more An overview of patristic and Byzantine biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, covering exegetical genres, the antecedents of patristic and Byzantine biblical hermeneutics in Jewish and Greek practices, Byzantine hermeneutical principles, and with special attention to the middle and late Byzantine periods. This chapter was written for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Literature, and thus in places necessarily takes the form of a survey.
The middle Byzantine Lives of the Virgin Mary have recently attracted considerable scholarly atte... more The middle Byzantine Lives of the Virgin Mary have recently attracted considerable scholarly attention, partly due to the mistaken attribution of one of these Lives to St Maximos the Confessor. This article is a preliminary study for an edition and translation of John Geometres, The Life of the Virgin Mary, which I am working on with Christos Simelidis for publication in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series.
Mother of the Light: Prayers to the Theotokos, 2018
Introduction to a collection of prayers to the Mother of God ascribed to St Ephraim the Syrian. T... more Introduction to a collection of prayers to the Mother of God ascribed to St Ephraim the Syrian. These prayers were written in Greek by a writer (or writers) whom scholars call Ephraim graecus, or the "Greek Ephraim" (and I have been told that these are the first published English translations of the Greek Ephraim since the early 18th-century.) The collection also includes canons to the Virgin by Theodore the Studite, Methodios of Constantinople, and John Euchaita. On the corpus of Greek Ephraim writings, along with a number of English translations, see: https://saintephrem.wordpress.com/manuscripts/
This is a talk I gave to a group of seminarians and theology students who were visiting the campu... more This is a talk I gave to a group of seminarians and theology students who were visiting the campus of Holy Cross, where I teach. While I do not normally post sermons and church talks on Academia, the discussion of Luke's account of the Visitation is part of my work on the Mother of God in the patristic and Byzantine tradition, and seemed worth sharing with interested readers.
The thought of Gregory Palamas is marked by an extraordinary appropriation of Pauline theology th... more The thought of Gregory Palamas is marked by an extraordinary appropriation of Pauline theology that has largely escaped scholarly notice. This paper argues that the Hesychast controversy unfolded around rival interpretations of Paul's theology and visionary experiences, especially his vision of the divine light (Acts 9:3–9) and his ascent into the 'third heaven' (2 Cor 12:1–10), which Palamas and his followers identified with their own understanding of the uncreated light of God and with Hesychast spirituality more generally. Palamas' rich and complex handling of Paul's letters is explored through a close reading of the first Triad, along with relevant passages from the other works in the trilogy. The analysis suggests that the Hesychast controversy was in many ways a debate about who was the true follower of Paul. The last fifty years have witnessed an explosion of Palamite studies, along with growing interest in other theological writers of the period, yet almost no attention has been paid to the Palamite (or Hesychast) use of the Pauline corpus or of Scripture more generally. If we take the standard works of reference as our starting point, we will be told that the Hesychast controversy was a debate about the nature of mystical experience, a clash between ascetic spirituality and scholastic methodology, a chapter in the ongoing quarrel between faith and reason (or between theology and philosophy, or Christianity and Hellenism), or simply an ideological screen for the ambitions of warring feudal magnates set against the background of reviving urban life. As true as these interpretations might be, they do not even remotely suggest that the Hesychast controversy can and probably should be seen as a debate about who was the true follower of Paul.
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Papers by Fr. Maximos Constas
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