Vladimir Lossky: a landmark, a starting point

This article by Christos Yannaras offers a theological and historical assessment of Vladimir Lossky's work, twenty years after his death. Drawing on critical and synthetic reflection, it examines the significance of the *Essay on the Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church* as a pivotal work in the history of Orthodox theology. The central idea is that this book constitutes a historical landmark marking the end of the "Babylonian captivity" — a period of dependence on Western scholastic methods — and the beginning of a return to patristic theology, grounded in the experience of salvation and ecclesial catholicity. On the theological level, Yannaras identifies three coordinates derived from Lossky's work — the ontology of the person, apophatic gnoseology, and eucharistic ecclesiology — as structuring axes of contemporary Orthodox thought, whose influence has extended to the Roman Catholic patristic renewal and the Second Vatican Council.