Science and Eastern Orthodoxy

Efthymios Nicolaidis is director of the Programme for the History, Philosophy, and Didactics of Science and Technology at the National Hellenic Research Foundation. He has written and edited a number of books on the history of science in Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire and coedited L'Europe des sciences: constitution d'un espace scientifique.

• IntroductionChronology1. The Activist and the Philosopher: The Hexaemerons of Basil and of Gregory of Nyssa2. Two Conceptions of the World: The Schools of Antioch and Alexandria3. No Icons, No Science: The End of a Tradition?4. The Return for Greek Science: The First Byzantine Humanism5. Struggle for Heritage: Science in Nicaea and the Byzantine Renaissance6. Political Debates Become Scientific: The Era of the Palaiologos7. True Knowledge and Ephemeral Knowledge: The Hesychast Debate8. Ancients versus Moderns: Byzantium and Persian, Latin, and Jewish Sciences9. The Fall of the Empire and the Exodus to Italy10. A Rebel Patriarch: Cyril Lucaris and Orthodox Humanism inScience11. Toward Russia: The Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy and the Patriarchate of Jerusalem12. Who Were the Heirs of the Hellenes? Science and the Greek Enlightenment13. The Scientifi c Modernization of an Orthodox State: Greece from Independence to the European Union14. Science and Religion in the Greek State: Materialism and DarwinismConclusionA Note on Secondary SourcesNotesSelected BibliographyIndex

An excellent contribution to college library world history and religious studies shelves. -- James A. Cox Midwest Book Review A thorough and exacting refutation of the idea that Orthodoxy rejects science outright. -- Katherine Warton Times Literary Supplement This book provides the English-speaking reader with invaluable insights and references which cover nearly a continuous two-thousand year period of interaction between faith and knowledge, science and technology. This book will certainly make a serious contribution to existing scholarship on the history of the relation between science and Christianity. It fills an essential, and inadmissible gap in research related to Byzantium, Eastern Europe, and Russia. -- Alexei V. Nesteruk Perspectives in Science and Christian Faith Nicolaidis is well prepared to take on the difficult topic of science and Eastern Orthodoxy... The author lays an impressive foundation for future work... Highly recommended. Choice Nicolaidis offers not only a hitherto missing reference work, but also a fundamental contribution to the history of medieval science - and a challenging reference for future debates. -- Constantin Canavas Icon This is a very useful book to serve as supportive document for the teaching of the history of science and philosophy. -- Christiaan Sterken Journal of Astronomical Data The book is in general of the highest scholarly standard, and it will be a major resource for students and historians of science and religion for decades to come. -- Christopher C. Knight Metascience