2011 Reviews

Review of The Melody of Faith: Theology in an Orthodox Key, by Vigen Guroian

Elia, Anthony J.

In the preface of Vigen Gurioan's accessibly manageable tome, he offers readers a vignette about a comment the editor-in-chief of Eerdmans Publishing once made to him regarding his style of scholarship. To quote the editor: "Vigen, you write tone poems." It is then quite expected that the author begins this fine work with a statement about its structure, which to those steeped in Western Latin Christianity may seem foreign or stylistically unclear. He writes "[the book's] coherence and organization are less architectonic than musical. This is consistent with the general character of Orthodox Christian theology," (xi). But it is just this statement which is most helpful and welcome, and from the viewpoint of this reviewer, fits nicely into the breadth of Orthodox theology in general.