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Sex, Marriage, and Theosis

by Aristotle Papanikolaou

For the Orthodox tradition, theosis is not a far-off expectation, but a possibility realized in the everydayness of life. When thinking about theosis, the Fathers were attentive to the various parts of the soul, its rational and affective parts. For the rational, theosis has to do with seeing God’s truth and wisdom embedded in creation and realized through contemplation.

Aristotle Papanikolaou

A professor of theology and the Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture at Fordham University. He is co-director of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham and a senior fellow at the Emory University Center for the Study of Law and Religion. He is the author of numerous books, among them Orthodox Constructions of the West, The Mystical as Political: Democracy and Non-Radical Orthodoxy, and Being with God: Trinity, Apophaticism, and Divine-Human Communion.

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