Contesting Ontological Eastern-ness: Florovsky’s Neo-Patristic Synthesis as a Postmodern and Postcolonial Response to Orientalism and Slavophilia

While George Florovsky’s neo-patristic synthesis is acclaimed as one of the most influential contributions to contemporary Orthodox Christian thought, its mixed legacy reveals discrepancy in its interpretation and application. In popular usage, the term is employed as a heuristic to encapsulate a general idea of “return to the Church Fathers'' without providing a rigorous definition, objective, or methodology, which can result in an overly simplistic account commensurate with right-wing Slavophilia. However, more clarity can be achieved by contextualizing Florovsky’s writings as a critical response to both Slavophilia and the ideology from which it arose, namely Western European Orientalism. I will argue that Slavophilia is a reactionary movement ultimately tied to the same imperial project as Orientalism– to disentangle, legitimize, and hierarchize the sociopolitical categories of “East” and “West.” Therefore, a Slavophilic reading of neo-patristic synthesis, which I call neo-patristic reactionism, is a self-defeating project that centralizes Western Christianity in its compulsion to oppose “the West.” Instead, I seek to demonstrate how neo-patristic synthesis can be understood as a postmodern project to build a new foundation for self-actualized Orthodox Christian identity independent from the colonial epistemology of Orientalism and Slavophilia.

Despite the many merits of Slavophilia’s critique of Western society, the ideology ultimately does little for the liberation of Orthodox identity from the West because it inherits its epistemology directly from Orientalist sources. The very notions of “East” and “West” as essentialized categories is a self-reflexive construct of Western European identity. Following Said’s critique in _Orientalism_, the performance of Eastern-ness as an antithesis to the West must be recognized as a trope written by and for a Western audience, which further reifies the centralization of Western Christianity as the model to which all other identities are compared. Guided by Victor Anderson’s critique of “ontological blackness” in American racial discourse, I argue that the project of removing all Western influence from the Orthodox way of life is self-defeating, because the project itself is guided and determined by the parameters of that influence.[1] 

Given that much of Florovsky’s thought is amenable to Slavophilic ideology– especially his early work, perhaps most famously in _The Ways of Russian Theology_– and he indeed participated for a time in the Slavophilia-adjacent Eurasianist movement, a Slavophilic reading of neo-patristic synthesis is predictably common. Admittedly, his characterization of the West is explicitly polemical and borderline reactionary. However, I will argue that the methodology and driving objective of neo-patristic synthesis differentiates it from Slavophilia and Orientalism, and that a Slavophilic reading of it– neo-patristic reactionism– further obfuscates Orthodox Christian thought and identity. 

Neo-patristic reactionism accepts ontological Eastern-ness as its starting premise, and thus turns to the past for evidence of authentically Eastern religious expression. This task requires preexisting, organic, and objective unanimity among its source texts, waiting to be uncovered by the researcher. When presented with diverse historical claims, the neo-patristic reactionary maintains consensus by allocating authority post hoc, disregarding dissenting voices as corrupt on account of their nonconformity. According to this method, the process of recovery involves no interpretive judgements, only facts confirming conclusions. As it enforces homogeneity and suppresses internal conflict, this ideology is highly effective for consolidating power and rallying fervent support. It has become a powerful force in contemporary Russian Orthodox thought under the Putin regime,[2] and is gaining influence among American Orthodox converts seeking an epistemological stronghold amidst the perceived decay of Western institutions. The fixation on Russia as the sole, or at least preeminent, defender of authentic Orthodoxy suggests that this ideology has less to do with Orthodoxy qua the Orthodox Church than with Orthodoxy as symbolic sociopolitical institutionalization of a superior way of life, which is a distinctly Slavophilic ecclesiology.[3]

A focused appraisal of Florovsky’s historical methodology suggests a very different project. Liberation from “Latin captivity” and recovery of a uniquely Orthodox way of life are certainly the core of neo-patristic synthesis, but with a recognition of the futility of Orientalist and Slavophilic historiography. Instead, drawing on his interdisciplinary academic background, Florovsky takes a critical and postmodern approach to historical sources, abandoning the previous methods of positivism and empiricism– hallmarks of the Western Enlightenment thinking that empowered Orientalist ideas of the East. This means also abandoning the notion of Eastern-ness as a mirror image of Western-ness. Rather than manufacturing objectivity to free the facts of history from interpretation, Florovsky engages in the co-creation of narrative identity with historical sources as “‘co-persons’” and “‘co-partners’ in the quest of life.”[4] According to this method, depersonalizing the Church Fathers as an inanimate paradigm condemns them to fossilization in the past, while reverent acknowledgement of their full personhood grants them continued agency and participation in the present. The methodological turn from things to persons implies a de-essentialization of Orthodox identity, because personhood “in its fullness and in its ultimate depth” cannot be reduced to any singular set of characteristics.[5]

This is a subversive rejection of Western epistemological norms, constituting through its method a self-definition free from the constraints of Orientalist ideas of Eastern-ness. It prioritizes the reinforcement of the ancestral spiritual bonds that hold the Church in unity across time, rather than conformity to an idyllic, imagined past. I will conclude my assessment by highlighting examples of how this dynamic can operate ecclesiologically and speculating about what this could mean for East-West Christian relations going forward.

[1] Victor Anderson, Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay on African American Religious and Cultural Criticism (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016).

[2] See, e.g., Andrei Kolesnikov, “Scientific Putinism: Shaping Official Ideology in Russia,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, November 21, 2022; Raimondo Lanza, “Goodbye Liberalism: The Triumph of Russia’s ‘Slavophiles,’” Aspenia Online- Aspen Institute Italia, June 27, 2022.

[3] See Georges Florovsky, “Вечное и преходящее в учении русских славянофилов” [The Eternal and the Transitory in the Teachings of the Russian Slavophiles], in Из прошлого русской мысли (Moscow: Аграф, 1998), 34-65.

[4] Georges Florovsky, “The Predicament of the Christian Historian,” in Christianity and Culture, Collected Works of Georges Florovsky (Belmont: Nordland Publishing Company, 1974), 40.

[5] Florovsky, “Predicament,” 52.