Looking East in winter : contemporary thought and the Eastern Christian tradition / Rowan Williams.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Theologizing the life of the spirit : the world of the Philokalia -- Nature, passion and desire : the excessiveness of Being -- The embodied Logos : reason, knowledge and relation -- Participating divinity, entering emptiness : the shape of transformation -- Humanity in Christ -- Liturgical humanism : the anthropology of worship and sacrament -- Tradition : the memory of the discerning community -- Justice, distance and love : a contemplative stance in politics? -- Holy folly and the problem of representing holiness -- The body of Christ and the ministry of Mary -- Rethinking eschatology

In many ways, we seem to be living in wintry times at present in the Western world. In this new book Williams introduces us to some aspects and personalities of the Orthodox Christian world, from the desert contemplatives of the fourth century to philosophers, novelists and activists of the modern era, that suggest where we might look for fresh light and warmth. He shows how this rich and diverse world opens up new ways of thinking about spirit and body, prayer and action, worship and social transformation, which go beyond the polarisations we take for granted. Taking in the world of the great spiritual anthology, the Philokalia, and the explorations of Russian thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, discussing the witness of figures like Maria Skobtsova, murdered in a German concentration camp for her defence of Jewish refugees, and the challenging theologies of modern Greek thinkers like John Zizioulas and Christos Yannaras, Rowan Williams opens the door to a 'climate and landscape of our humanity that can indeed be warmed and transfigured'. This is an original and illuminating vision of a Christian world still none too familiar to Western believers and even to students of theology, showing how the deep-rooted themes of Eastern Christian thought can prompt new perspectives on our contemporary crises of imagination and hope. --Book jacket.