John Savvas Romanides (; 2 March 19271 November 2001) was a theologian, Eastern Orthodox priest, and scholar who had a distinctive influence on post-war Greek Orthodox theology.
Biography
Born in Piraeus, Greece, on 2 March 1927, his parents emigrated to the United States when he was only two months old. He grew up in Manhattan, graduating from the Hellenic College, Brookline, Massachusetts. After attending Yale Divinity School, he received his PhD from the University of Athens.
From 1956 to 1965 he was Professor of Dogmatic Theology at the Holy Cross Theological School in Brookline, Massachusetts. In 1968 he was appointed as tenured professor of Dogmatic Theology at the University of Thessaloniki, Greece, a position he held until his retirement in 1982. His latest position was Professor of Theology at Balamand Theological School, in Lebanon. Romanides died in Athens, Greece on 1 November 2001.
Theology
Romanides belonged to the "theological generation of the 1960s", which pleaded for a "return to the Fathers", and led to "the acute polarization of the East-West divide and the cultivation of an anti-Western, anti-ecumenical sentiment." According to Kalaitzidis, his early theological interests are "wide and broad-minded", but narrowed with the publication of Romiosini in 1975, which postulates an absolute divide between the Eastern Churches and the Western Church: "[h]ereafter, the West is wholly demonized and proclaimed responsible for all the misfortunes of the Orthodox, both theological and historical/national."
Romanides contributed many speculations, some controversial, into the cultural and religious differences between Eastern and Western Christianity. According to Romanides, these divergences have impacted the ways in which Christianity has developed and been lived out in the Christian cultures of East and West. According to Romanides, these divergences were due to the influences of the Franks, who were culturally very different from the Romans.
His theological works emphasize the empirical (experiential) basis of theology called theoria or vision of God, (as opposed to a rational or reasoned understanding of theory) as the essence of Orthodox theology, setting it "apart from all other religions and traditions", especially the Frankish-dominated western Church which distorted this true spiritual path. Studying extensively the works of 14th-century Byzantine theologian St. Gregory Palamas, he stated religion to be identical with sickness, and the so-called Jesus prayer