OF THE ANCIENT CHURCH

PREFACE

The book Origins acquaints the reader with the main features of the Orthodox patristic tradition. Numerous, profoundly significant quotations from the writings of the Holy Fathers, together with exceptionally subtle and intelligent commentaries, represent a special quality introduction to the Orthodox experience of church life in Christ.

The Russian reader may find it surprising that the author of this truly Orthodox book is by no means of Russian or Greek, Romanian, Bulgarian or Serbian origin, but... A pure-blooded Frenchman. Of course, everyone knows that there are Frenchmen, formerly Catholics and Protestants, who converted to Orthodoxy for different reasons and in different circumstances. Olivier Clément is an exception in this regard. He discovered Christianity and was baptized in the Orthodox Church as an adult.

One of the most outstanding Orthodox theologians of our century, the author of numerous books on the history of the Church (he is a historian by profession), Orthodox theology, the problems of modern society – in the light of the Orthodox vision of life, the president of the Society of Believing Writers of France, Olivier Clément was born in the south of France in a family of agnostics and was not baptized as a child. He himself says that from an early age he constantly had the question of the meaning of death and thus of life. He was looking for his way for a long time, in his youth he was actively involved in politics (he took part in the Resistance movement during the Second World War). Then he became interested in various Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism...). Driven by an interest in the East, Olivier Clément became acquainted with the book of the Orthodox theologian Vladimir Nikolaevich Lossky "An Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church" (Paris, 1944; Russian translation by V. A. Reschikova in Theological Works, coll. 8, Moscow, 1972). Having made friends with V. N. Lossky himself in 1952, O. Clément, thirty years old, was baptized in the Orthodox Church.

Until the death of V. N. Lossky (1903–1958), O. Clément was his most gifted student – according to Vl. Lossky – and a close friend. Olivier Clément was also closely associated with another Russian theologian, Pavel Nikolaevich Evdokimov (1901–1970). In this way, he came into close contact, personally or through books, with those who in the West developed the heritage of the Russian Orthodox revival of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Olivier Clément found himself in close contact with the Russian milieu who belonged to the generation expelled from Russia in the early twenties and settled in Paris.