Peter Hammond

This article constitutes the second part of a series of lectures in which Peter Hammond, an Anglican theologian, examines the reasons for and the scope of the renewed interest in Eastern Orthodoxy in the West. The author adopts a comparative and critical approach, bringing Eastern and Western theological and ecclesiological traditions into confrontation. His central thesis is that Western Christianity has suffered since the Middle Ages from excessive clericalism and a conceptual theology that have marginalized the laity and impoverished ecclesial life. By contrast, Orthodoxy is said to have preserved a living apophatic theology and an active role for the layperson in the liturgy and the apostolate. The contribution of the article lies in its historical contextualization of the break between East and West, presented not as a cultural divide but as a fundamental theological divergence, the rediscovery of Orthodoxy potentially contributing to the healing of the Western Church.

This article is the transcript of two radio lectures broadcast by the BBC in 1957, in which Reverend Peter Hammond explores the theological significance of the rapprochement between Western Christianity and the Orthodox Church. Starting from a personal testimony — his discovery of Greek Orthodoxy during the Second World War and his reading of the Khomiakov-Palmer correspondence — Hammond develops the thesis that the reform movement running through all of Western Christendom in the twentieth century spontaneously leads to the rediscovery of doctrinal and liturgical positions that the Christian East has never abandoned. The article examines several areas — Eucharistic ecclesiology, Trinitarian spirituality, sacred art, the role of the laity — to show that the eleventh-century schism constitutes the true interpretive horizon of Western controversies. Its contribution lies in the re-reading of Western ecclesiastical history from the Orthodox perspective, notably that of Khomiakov and Lossky.