In Defense of the East-West Divide

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This is a portion of first lecture from The East-West Series, a 25-lecture exploration of the fundamental differences between Eastern and Western Christianity. I’m currently crowdfunding to complete production of the full series, which will launch Summer 2026.

Read part 1 here.

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Concerning the tone of this series, I have already mentioned that I’m an Eastern Orthodox Christian, this being the result of my journey through the history of ideas. This series, however, is not an Eastern Orthodox apologetic. My training and scholarship is in the history of ideas and historical theology. While my scholarly conclusions are in keeping with the Orthodox Church, I speak neither as a representative of Orthodoxy (I am not) nor as an Orthodox polemicist or apologist. I speak as both a philosopher and historical theologian, who strives to speak fairly and accurately about the history of ideas. My aim is to accurately represent both East and West, without telling you, dear listener, which tradition you should side with.

Now, on this point, a word should be said about the central claim of this series, namely, that there is a theological divide between East and West. The point was common amongst the generation of Russian scholars whose ranks include Vladimir Lossky, Georges Florovsky, and Alexander Schmemann. These figures, and others of their ilk, were part of the generation expelled from Russia after the 1917 Revolution. Their movement to the West awakened them to (what they considered to be) a theological crisis that had been building for centuries within the Russian and Greek theological academies. In a word, they witnessed a crisis of syncretism, where Orthodox scholars were toying with Western ideas from Latin scholasticism, the Enlightenment, and both Roman Catholic and Protestant theology — the results being a “Western captivity” of the Orthodox Church. Lossky, Florovsky, and others saw these theologies as notably divergent from the pure Orthodox faith and thus took great pains to purge Orthodoxy of Western innovations, which required them to articulate in no uncertain terms the differences between the Christian East and the Christian West.

In recent years, however, this claim has become unfashionable in some academic and ecumenical circles. A number of scholars have grown critical of the view as unduly dichotomous, and the presumption about advocates of the divide is that their view is the product of outdated scholarship.

However, such is not the source of my convictions. Roughly the first two decades of my scholarship on the history of ideas was devoted to the history of Western thought. My research program began with Augustine of Hippo, recognizing him as the fountainhead of both Catholic and Protestant theology, and then spidered out from his work backwards into his pagan antecedents and forwards into his medieval, post-Reformation, and Modern recipients. My goals were purely historical, striving to understand the developments of Western thought generally and of Christianity specifically. Only at the twilight of this program did I stumble upon the Eastern Church fathers.

What first captured my attention about these thinkers was how alien their thought was to all of Latin theology. I knew I didn’t fully grasp what I was reading, but what I could see quite plainly was that Eastern patristic thought stood entirely outside of every Western system I had studied. This fact is what led me to delve deeply into these fathers with one simple goal — to understand. But the more I understood, the more I saw the vast differences between East and West. In short, my conviction that there is a great chasm between Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity was born from my study of the primary sources. I would only later discover writers like Lossky and others who concurred with my findings. But neither these scholars nor any contemporary Orthodox literature played a role in shaping my conviction about the East-West divide. For this reason, I simply cannot entertain the suggestion that the view is based on dated scholarship. For my own conviction was born, not from secondary literature, but from decades of studying the primary sources.

The natural question, of course, is why, if the divide is real, do some scholars oppose the claim? In reply, I see several factors at play, each of which takes aim at the same essential feature of the East-West dichotomy. That feature is this. All recognize that Western theology proliferates into a host of opposing theological systems, beginning in the medieval period and expanding exponentially with the Reformation — systems that ultimately give rise to opposing churches and denominations. But advocates of the East-West dichotomy see theological cohesion in the Christian East. In other words, the Christian West shares a handful of basic commitments about the nature of God, man, sin, and salvation, but they are divided on the theological specifics of their ramifications. In the Christian East, by contrast, there is both agreement on the commitments of Christianity and on the specifics of its doctrine, offering a cohesive theology and practice. The belief that the Eastern Church fathers stand in agreement, speaking with a single mind about a common faith is the claim that many oppose. Now, the natural question is why? Why would one oppose the claim that the Eastern fathers are in general agreement on matters of Christian doctrine?

The first explanation concerns the nature of contemporary scholarship. The modern academy thrives on specialization. Very few scholars today are what are pejoratively termed “generalists,” one who looks at the whole of the history of ideas. Instead, scholars are encouraged to specialize on a specific figure and even a specific aspect of that figure’s thought. The natural result is hyper-specialization with focus on minutia. Such granular work tends to amplify differences, even where no substantive difference exists. For example, a patrologist (one who specializes in the Church fathers) may spy a difference between Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus on the hypostasis (ὑπόστασις) doctrine — this being the Greek word translated “person” in reference to the Trinity. Why? Because Gregory of Nazianzus continues to use the word prosopon (πρόσωπον) — a word used by the Sabellians — when speaking about the Trinity, while Gregory of Nyssa abandons the term. Now, the observation is true — one of the Gregories rejects the word prosopon with prejudice, while the other does not. But equally important is that Gregory of Nazianzus only ever uses prosopon in conjunction with hypostasis, so that his meaning is clear: He is not using the word in the Sabellian sense. The difference is one of linguistic caution, but it hardly constitutes a substantive difference in doctrine. Yet, such pedantry is the very thing that academic articles are made of — granular scholarship that amplifies subtlety and minutia that is often lost in larger surveys of ideas.

On this scholarly trend, I would say two things. The first is that it naturally leads scholars to prefer less cohesive perspectives. When one has devoted his life to memorizing every contour of every word uttered by a certain figure, the idiosyncrasies of that figure are naturally amplified in his mind, making it much easier to see that figure’s idiosyncrasies relative to the rest of the history of ideas. But the amplification is often a distortive myopia, producing greater difference in the mind of the specialist than really exists.

The second point I would add is this. While such minutia may appear to indicate a deeper grasp on the history of ideas, the opposite often occurs. Here’s why. Consider, for example, Epistle 38 in Basil of Caesarea’s corpus. This letter, which is the first to expound in detail the ὑπόστασις doctrine, is often attributed to Basil’s brother, Gregory of Nyssa. Most any article that cites the letter today likely notes the Gregorian attribution, and cites an article by Reinhold Hübner. Now, Hübner’s case is based on the presumption that Gregory of Nyssa has an Aristotelian view of substance, while his brother, Basil, has a Stoic view of substance. Since Epistle 38 presumes an Aristotelian view, the letter must belong to Gregory, not Basil. For my part, I disagree with Hübner’s assessment, but that’s neither here nor there. The more important point is this. You can find scholarly articles that attack an Aristelian reading of Epistle 38 but begin by citing Hübner for Gregorian authorship. The result is a contradiction. Now, why would a scholar make such a mistake? Simply put, the author probably has not read Hübner. He has simply conceded the majority opinion on Gregorian authorship. While this may appear to be laziness, it’s really a practicality. Hyper-specialization hinders a scholar’s ability to master things outside his specialization — there are, after all, only so many hours in the day. Shortcuts are inevitable and reliance on the state of scholarship in other areas is necessary. But what this means is that the specialists are not necessarily moving in a cohesive direction. Their work is compartmentalized, and their conclusions may well contradict one another. So, rather than specialization moving us toward a clearer picture of the history of ideas, the result is often the opposite: The broader understanding of the history of ideas is lost behind a cloud of fragmented and disjointed scholarly pedantry.

This trend in modern scholarship, I believe, is one explanation for why some scholars resist the type of East-West divide discussed by Lossky, Florovsky, Schmemann, and others. Specialists see it as too simplistic. Why? Because their hyper-specialization and granular focus leads them to deny any sense of cohesion across the Eastern Church fathers, seeing only idiosyncrasies and thus fragmentation. Yet, the claim of Lossky and other advocates of the East-West divide is quite the opposite: Despite idiosyncrasies and varied nuances, there is cohesion to Eastern patristic thought throughout the first millennium. Yes, we can find idiosyncrasies in these fathers. Yes, we find varied theological opinions on topics tangential to the Apostolic Faith. But in the essentials of the faith, we find cohesion across Eastern patristic thought.

To be sure, this is not to say that we do not find developments in Eastern patristic language — we certainly do. As we will see in the lectures on the Trinity, the language surrounding three persons and one essence develops over time. Such as the reason we find artifacts of the development of language like the aforementioned difference between the Gregories about whether to retain or wholly abandon a word tainted by the heretics. But the conviction of scholars like myself is that these developments are not changes in doctrine but linguistic refinements to help clarify the substance that is already present.

Now, as I said, my own study of the primary sources is what opened my eyes to the East-West divide, and it’s also what convinced me of the cohesion of thought in the Eastern Church fathers. But rather than appealing to my own assessment, allow me to appeal to another’s — to John of Damascus. John is an eighth-century Church father, who played a critical role within the iconoclast controversy that led to the Seventh Ecumenical Council. John produced two works worth noting in the present context. The first is The Fount of Knowledge, or his philosophical chapters. The second is On the Orthodox Faith — or An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith. What is particularly notable about these works is that, in them, John records the consensus of the Eastern fathers before him, seeking to add nothing of his own thought. The Fount of Knowledge is essentially a patristic encyclopedia, explaining the meaning of terms as used by the fathers before him. On the Orthodox Faith moves systematically through the doctrines of the Christian faith, offering the consensus of the Eastern fathers on each topic. Such works indicate that John, himself a Church father, believes the Eastern fathers of the first eight centuries share consensus on terms, concepts, and doctrines of the Christian faith. — And to be sure, John is aware of varied opinions on specific questions, noting where opinions are several, but sees none of these as indicative of a substantive difference. — I point this out for one simple reason. The opinion of Lossky and others, like myself, that the Eastern Church fathers are of one mind on the essentials of the Christian faith is an opinion shared by one of the most important Church fathers of the eighth century. The consensus we see he sees as well — while standing much closer to the events, texts, and figures in question. So, for my part, I gladly cast my lot with John of Damascus over any contemporary scholar who might say otherwise.

A second explanation for the resistance, I believe, is its implications for other traditions. I trust it’s no secret that the Orthodox Church claims to be the True Church, established by Christ and his Apostles, and the keeper of the Apostolic Faith. Part of this claim is that the understanding of the Christian faith found in the Eastern Church fathers is present in the first century, indicating its Apostolic nature, and that this understanding was, in turn, handed down from one generation to the next, faithfully preserved by the Eastern fathers and the Ecumenical Councils. If the claim is true that these fathers and the Councils with them harbor a cohesive view of the Christian faith throughout the first millennium, then the claim that this understanding of Christianity is the Apostolic Faith becomes immediately plausible, if not likely.

For the Protestant, who harbors a very different picture of the Christian faith, the ramifications are unsettling. For this would seem to indicate that their view of Christianity is a later development, divergent from the faith of the Apostles and their Scriptures. Likewise, the ramifications are no less unsettling for the Roman Catholic. For if the development of Western theology is not only fragmented but developmental and at odds with the faith we find in the Eastern fathers, then the claim that Rome is the keeper of the Apostolic Faith, likewise, becomes suspect. Hence, there is good reason why Protestant and Catholic apologists attack the cohesion of Eastern patristic theology.

To catalogue and rebut the Protestant and Catholic polemics against Eastern Orthodoxy is beyond both the nature and scope of this series. But allow me a word about some general contours of these polemics.

Protestant attempts to chip away at the East-West dichotomy tend to search the Eastern fathers in an effort to find proof-texts for Protestant doctrines. For example, Protestant theology often harbors a very specific understanding of the atonement, which we will discuss in later lectures. Protestant apologists will, thus, search Eastern patristic texts in an effort to find passages that appear resonant with this doctrine, disputing the Eastern Orthodox reading of her own fathers. As will become evident in the lectures on atonement, however, such efforts display a superficial understanding of patristic literature. The Protestant takes for granted his definition of words like “sin” or “wrath” or “mediator” and imposes these meanings on the Eastern fathers, oblivious to the fact that these fathers have a very different lexicon. In addition, the Protestant is typically ignorant of other aspects of Eastern patristic thought, such as its view of providence, which make the proposed reading of these fathers impossible. In other words, the passages are stripped from the broader context of these fathers’ theology. While rebutting such readings is not the concern of this series, the lectures to follow invariably shed light on why such polemics are problematic.

Perhaps surprisingly, I find something similar at work in Roman Catholic polemics. For example, when discussing the filioque — that is, whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (the Orthodox view) or from the Father and the Son (the Catholic view) — Catholic apologists will often catalogue passages from the Eastern fathers that speak about the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father through the Son as proof of the Catholic position. But such polemics fail to recognize the more fundamental disagreements about the doctrine of God and the Trinity that precede this question. Without acknowledging these more basic differences, the very same passage that requires dual procession from the Roman Catholic view is utterly irrelevant to the question for the Eastern Orthodox reader. Once again, while rebutting such readings is not the concern of these lectures, the sorts of fundamental differences to which I here refer will become evident throughout this series.

A second thing I would point out about Roman Catholic polemics is this. I often see within Catholic apologetics two claims that are at odds with one another. The first, as mentioned, is the insistence that there is no consensus in the Eastern Church fathers on the Apostolic Faith. Hence, the Orthodox claim to be the keepers of this faith is false. The second claim that is no less prominent is this: The Eastern Church fathers are in consensus on all of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. I raise this, not to voice cynicism (though I am cynical about such polemics), but to point out a scholarly trend that I find problematic, namely, the effort of some to Latinize the Eastern fathers. Such trends are sometimes subtle, such as misleading translations of Eastern patristic works, and sometimes not so subtle, such as scholarly works aimed at rereading Eastern fathers through a Latin lens. Suffice it to say that while I understand the impulse of such work, I think it a distortion of what we, in point of fact, find in the writings of the Eastern Church fathers.

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