Summary of Online lecture

Norman Russell

FROM CHALCEDON BACK TO NICAEA:

JOHN OF DAMASCUS’ SOLUTION

FOR THE CHRISTOLOGICAL IMPASSE OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY

The online lecture on the topic “From Chalcedon back to Nicaea: John of Damascus’ solution for the Christological impasse of the eighth century” was held on Wednesday, May 28, 2025. The speaker was Norman Russell, an Honorary Research Fellow of St Stephen's House, University of Oxford. The event was the last one of the “Time for Action” series organized by Volos Academy for Theological Studies, and it was moderated by Dr Dimitrios Moschos, Professor in the Theological Faculty of the University of Athens.

The speaker, after a brief presentation of the Christological controversy and the political background of the 6th and 7th centuries, outlined the new ideas of John of Damascus and the influences he received from Dionysius the Areopagite and especially Maximus the Confessor, regarding particularly the understanding and use of the term “perichoresis”. John of Damascus extended this concept from the Trinitarian theology of the Nicene Creed to the relationship between the two natures of Christ, while furthermore, drawing from the thinkers of his time elements regarding nature and essence on the one hand, and on the other regarding hypostasis and person and the relationship between them. Thus, he offered an understanding of the union based on hypostasis rather than on nature, a union which he describes more successfully, utilizing the term “enypostaton”. Instead of a composite nature, John proposes the concept of a composite hypostasis. Thus, he elaborates and further develops two distinct ideas of Maximus, that of perichoresis and that of the hypostasis, building on Maximus’ attempt to align Chalcedonian Christology with the Trinitarianism of Nicaea.

The video recording of the event is available on the YouTube channel of Volos Academy, at https://youtu.be/D2iPEswjxLs (in Greek).