Development, Change and Pseudo-morphosis in the writing of Fr.

Georges Florovsky
and its application to the study of Peter Mohyla
-Ryan Hanning - June 2014

In 1920 the Russian theologian, Fr. Georges Florovsky, used a non-theological term to explain the result of
the encounter between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The second chapter of his seminal work, Puti russkogo bogosloviya (Ways of
Russian Theology), introduced the concept of “pseudo-morphosis” to describe the result of the “encounter with
the West.”1 He proposed that the exchange between Roman Catholic and Protestant ideas with the established
Eastern Orthodox Church in Kyiv ultimately lead to an unnatural development, a corruption and devolution of the
ethos of Orthodoxy. In this and other writings, his definition of “pseudo-morphosis” becomes clearer, as do the
parameters in which doctrine can change and develop. It is important to note that Florovsky does not see all change
as “pseudo-morphosis.” Throughout his works one can find a nuanced three fold progression of his description of
“pseudo-morphosis”. Careful analysis of this progression can reveal what the parameters of authentic development
or what might be called “authentic-morphosis,” may look like in the Orthodox tradition.2 This essay will examine
the works of Florovsky to gain a better understanding of his view of development, change and “pseudo-morphosis”
during the encounter with the West in the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Change, Development & Morphosis: Opposing views in East and West

Florovsky was one of the many celebrated Russian émigrés who encountered the West and trained there at
the turn of the twentieth century. The Russian theological intelligentsia attempted to retrieve the venerated and
respected monastic spirituality of Mount Athos from the more cataphatic approach to theology in the West.3
Florovsky, as well as others, would use Western categories and language to defend the apophatic theological
tradition of the East, not all too dissimilar to their predecessors centuries before them. Florovsky (1893-1979), and
Lossky (1903-1958) both identified the distinct versions of development in the Eastern and Western traditions. In
the West, the nouveaux théologiens continued to build on and advance Bl. Cardinal Newman’s idea of the development
of doctrine, finding the change (i.e. morphosis) throughout the history of the Church as both discernable and
essential to its organic growth.4 On the other hand, Eastern theologians struggled to reconcile the historical and
philosophical approach of the West in the area of development, and asserted that properly understood doctrine
does not develop. In his work Bible, Church, Tradition, Florovsky proposes that development itself is not a suitable
category to Orthodox theology.5 Similarly, Vladimir Lossky posits that the fundamentals of our faith received so
early in the tradition of the Church are diminished if “one dare speak, against all the evidence, of a collective

1 Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, 1979.

2 The Apostolic to Conciliar to modern Church all have had some forms of development recognized by various theological
fields. Florovsky hints at some examples in Bible, Church, Tradition of a transition from kerymatic to dogmatic cf. p. 108. Lossky
also develops this idea in his description of horizontal development that is the unfolding of revelation in time in The Image and
Likeness of God p. 147.
3 By “apophatic” I mean the “via negativa" more typical to the approach of Eastern Orthodox theology. This more cautious

approach focuses on the limitations of what can be known about God. By “kataphatic”, I mean positive theology, the intellectual
deduction of what can be known about God. These two approaches are both necessary and included in the East and West,
however historically the “kataphatic” approaches of Scholasticism are associated with the West, while the “apophatic”
approaches of hesychasm and the Cappadocian fathers are associated with the East.
4 For the impact of Newman’s writing on Theologians of the 20 th Century one only needs to look to Paul VI’s 1975 Address to

Newman Scholars, p. 368.

5 Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition: an Eastern Orthodox view, p. 112.
progress in the knowledge of Christian mystery, a progress which would be due to a ‘dogmatic development’ of the
Church.”6 In fact it would be accurate to deduce that most Orthodox theologians maintain a rejection, if not a
suspicion of the modern Roman Catholic understanding of development. Andrew Louth in his forward to John
Behr’s The Way to Nicea states:
Christian theology is not the development of Christian doctrine (Orthodox theologians ought to
have more problems with that idea, a fruit of Romanticism, popularized by Cardinal Newman,
than they often seem to): We can never pass beyond the apostolic confession of Christ. Rather the
formation of Christian theology is the result of sustained, and prayerful, thinking and meditation
by those who sought to grasp what is entailed by the Paschal mystery.7
This assertion, while perhaps surprising to a modern Roman Catholic theologian,8 is consistent with Orthodox
theology in general. With the exception of very specific situations, such as St. Gregory Naziansus (329-390), who
speaks of a “gradual revelation” of doctrine,9 and St. John Chrysostom’s (347-407) idea of the Church developing
more fully in time,10 the Church Fathers do not speak of “development” as a necessary theological category to
understand the unfolding and unpacking of divine revelation in history.11 St. Vincent de Lerins (d. 445)
Commonitorium offered insight about progress and development in the Church and its continuity with what preceded
it. This insight served as a patristic support for Newman, but not so in the East. St. Vincent’s first rule “semper ubique,
et ab omnibus”12 indicates the continuity in the teachings of the Church as professed “always, everywhere and by
everyone.” In addition, St. Vincent’s second rule “eodem sensu eademque sententia”13 articulates that as the Church
progresses through history, the varied forms and expressions of doctrine must always conform to the “same sense
and judgement” of the past. St. Vincent applies this principle when he says “doce ut cum dicas nove, non dicas nova” that
is “teach in a new way, do not teach new things.”14 Newman’s “First note of a genuine development, the
preservation of type” is highly influenced by St. Vincent’s thought.15 He quotes the Commonitorium, “Let the soul's
religion, imitate the law of the body, which, as years go on, develops indeed and opens out its due proportions, and
yet remains identically what it was. Small are a baby's limbs, a youth's are larger, yet they are the same."16 St. Vincent
continues “There may supervene shape, form, variation in outward appearance, but the nature of each kind must

6 Lossky, In the Image and Likeness, p. 162.

7 Behr, The Way to Nicaea. The Formation of Christian Theology Vol. 1, 2001.
8 Schillebeeckx, Rahner, Kasper among others all wrestled with the irreformability of dogma, and its apparent growth and

development throughout history. This very much was a common theme among the most influential theologians of Vatican II
and perhaps relatively new in the tradition of modern Catholic Theology. See Dulles, Contemporary Understanding of the Irreformability
of Dogma, 1970, and also Kerr, Twentieth-century Catholic theologians, 2007.
9 Oration 31:27 “You see how light shines on us bit by bit, you see in the doctrine of God an order, which we had better observe,

neither revealing it suddenly nor concealing it to the last…

10 Explan. of Ep. to Ephes. M. 1893, 2. pp. 93—94 “The Church is the fulfilment of Christ in the same manner as the tree is the

fulfilment of the grain. All that is contained in the grain in a condensed manner, receives its full development in the tree....” as
quoted by Florovsky, Bible, Church, Tradition, p. 39.
11 For a theological explanation see Dumitru Staniloae. The Orthodox Conception of Tradition and the Development of Doctrine, p. 652–62.

For a historical review of this debate see Andrew Louth. Is Development of Doctrine a Valid Category for Orthodox Theology, 2005. Both
will be referenced later.
12 An excellent article dedicated to the debate over Vincent de Lerins and Doctrinal development is found in Gaurino’s Tradition

and Doctrinal Development: Can Vincent of Lerins Still Teach the Church?” Note that Florovsky quote’s St. Vincent de Lerins first rule in
Bible, Church, Tradition, p. 74.
13 Vincent de Lerins, Commonitorium 23.1-12. Full phrase “in eodem scilicet dogmate eodem sensu eademque sentential” “in the same right

doctrine [there is] the same mind and same judgement.”

14 Vincent de Lerins, Commonitorium 22.23–30.
15 Newman, Development of Doctrine, Chap. 5 Sect. 1.
16 Vincent de Lerins, Commonitorium, 23.55.
remain the same.”17 In Newman, the guiding principles of St. Vincent’s second rule, “eodem sensu eademque sententia”
explained how change could still conform to the guiding principle of his first rule “semper ubique, et ab omnibus.”18
Having the “same mind and same judgement” preserved the claim of “semper ubique, et ab omnibus.” That is the second
rule caused the first rule. In the East, however, the principle of the second rule“eodem sensu eademque sententia” has
been interpreted differently, and it could be said it is the result, not the cause of the first rule. In this way the
immutable doctrine is the “same, everywhere for everyone” and therefore preserves the “same mind and
judgement” of the Church. Whereas Newman highlights St. Vincent’s acknowledgment of development in his
second rule, the theologians of the East stress the first rule and its implications on limiting development of doctrine
within the life of the Church.19
As historians, Florovsky and Lossky agreed with development as a useful historical category, but ultimately
rejected it as a theological category.20 For Florovsky and others, development could be experienced particularly in
its historical manifestations, in reaction to external attacks, or in the encounter with other cultures. However, the
timeless, immutable doctrines do not and cannot undergo a change. They do not progress, morph, or expand their
proportions. Florovsky explained: “it is a total misunderstanding to speak of ‘the development of dogma…dogmas
do not develop; they are unchanging and inviolable, even in their external aspect-their wordings.”21
In this way the Roman Catholic understanding of the development of doctrine, perhaps best articulated by
Bl. Cardinal Newman in his Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine22 is considered by Eastern theologians a
misapplication of the historical experience of the Church to her doctrine. Florovsky seems to have Newman in
mind when he states, “dogmas arise, dogmas are established [but] they do not develop.”23 Kevin Kalish summarizes
the Orthodox position well. He says, “although dogma may be revealed gradually, this does not mean that dogma
itself develops. Development presupposes growth and change from one thing to another.”24 Because dogma is an
eternal unchanging truth, it cannot change, or morph into anything than more than the dogma itself. But is Newman
indeed advocating for “growth and change from one thing to another?” Does he promote a concept of
development that accounts for an expansion of a dogma beyond what has been revealed by the Holy Spirit, and
lived out in the Church? There is a temptation to assume that the distinction between the East and West is merely a
matter of semantics, that is, they both agree on the parameters but express it differently. This view is supported by
Newman’s first of seven “notes of fidelity”25 on the preservation of type. Here Newman recognized that that
doctrine cannot change into something else, a concept that mirrors the insight of St. Vincent’s organic analogy.27
However, unlike the Eastern concept of the parameters of change, Bl. Newman explains, that even with the

17 Ibid.
18 Guarino, Tradition and Doctrinal Development... p. 38.
19 Florovsky clearly rejects an oversimplification of a broad application of Vincent’s first rule in Bible Church and Tradition, pp.

51-53, when the claim of Vincent is “inadequately” defined. However, he supports its implications in the context above when
speaking of tradition cf. p. 73, also Aspects of Church History pp. 254-255.
20 Louth, Is Development of Doctrine a Valid Category for Orthodox Theology, p. 46. This point is also articulated by Aidan Nichols in the

appendix in From Newman to Congar “Although Orthodoxy is deeply devoted to the dogmas proclaimed by the seven councils, it
distinguishes dogma as living truth in the Church from the historical expression of that truth” p. 285.
21 Florovsky, Revelation, Philosophy and Theology, 30. It is clear that in the writings of Florovsky he is not drawing a distinction

between dogma and doctrine, and thus I will use the words to mean one and the same.
22 John Henry Newman. An Essay on the Development of Christian doctrine. (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing 2007)
23 Ibid pg. 31.
24 Dcn. Kevin Kalish. Does Doctrine Develop? Pastoral School of the Chicago and Mid-America of the Russian Orthodox Church

Outside of Russia http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/47041.htm#_ftn58 (accessed 5/18/2012)

25 Newman, Development of Doctrine, Chap 6 Para 1
27 Vincent de Lerins appeals most commonly to the growth of development of the person, both physically and intellectually, cf.

Chap 23 para 55.

preservation of type, “great changes in outward appearance and internal harmony occur.” He explains that, “the
fledged bird differs much from its rudimental form in the egg,” and “the butterfly is the development, but not in any
sense the image, of the grub.”28 In this way, Newman claims that legitimate developments can look very different
from their previous forms, and real corruptions can look very similar to their antecedents. Here we can find the
essential difference between the opposing views of development. For Newman, there are occasions when
dogma/doctrine, in its development, can still preserve its type while taking on radically new forms. In the East, this
development clearly has more restricted parameters. Lossky explains that while admittedly new forms may be at the
service of doctrine “expounding and interpreting them anew according to the intellectual demands of the milieu,”
“one can speak of dogmatic development only in a very limited sense.”29 This “sense” is limited even more in
Florovsky, who sees in any change of content or form the possibility and likelihood of corruption. Lossky, and
Florovsky both concede that radical morphosis may happen in the created world, but it does not in the divine
economy as lived out in the Tradition of the Church.
Prominent Orthodox theologians Florovsky(1893-1979), and Lossky (1903-1958), already mentioned, as
well as current theologians John Behr, Andrew Louth, Kallistos Ware, Dumitru Staniloae and others all
acknowledge certain forms of development. They agree that there was gradual revelation and a type of development
in both theology, and the forms used to articulate it, in certain periods of the Church’s history. Here, a brief review
of these theologian’s views on development will be helpful to understand the nuances in the Orthodox position,
which all agree more or less that development is not a suitable category for theology
Florovsky envisions development particularly from the Apostolic to Conciliar age.30 He sees this
development in terms of expression as the doctrines of the faith moved from kerygma to dogma in the first few
centuries. “The Church”, he says “is equally committed to the kerygma of the Apostles and to the dogmata of the
fathers.”31 This apostolic and patristic dimension is inseparable, and both are related to development of doctrine.
He explains in Bible, Church and Tradition and nearly verbatim in Aspects of Church History here.
There are two basic stages in the proclamation of the Christian Faith. Our simple faith had to acquire
composition. There was an inner urge, an inner logic, an internal necessity, in this transition – from
kerygma to dogma. Indeed the dogmata of the Fathers are essentially the same “simple” kerygma,
which had once been delivered and deposited by the Apostles, once for ever. But now it is – this
very kerygma-properly articulated and developed into a consistent body of correlated testimonies.
Not in this quote several ideas on development can be inferred. The development has already taken place,
the past tense here used in both the English and Russian original(confirm). While the expression of the Church is
living and dynamic, they are received and cannot undergo more development. There is a distinction between the
deposit of faith and its relationship to systematic theology in the West and the “consistent body of correlated
testimonies” in the East as described by Florovsky.
Vladimir Lossky inadvertently contributes a clear schema for the interpretation and analysis of this
development. In Image and Likeness of God he identifies the vertical and horizontal aspects of theology and its
expression.32 While not directly referring to development, he offers a set of definitions, which in many ways allows

28 Newman, An Essay on the Development... 5 Section 1 para 4

29 Lossky, In the image and likeness of God, p.164.
30 Florovsky, Bible, church, tradition, p 107.
31 Florovsky, Aspects of Church History, p. 16. Emphasis in original.
32
Lossky, In the image and likeness of God, p.147.
for a very healthy dialog between the positions often taken on the subject of development in the East and West.33
He identifies the distinction between the function, not the authority or inseparability of Scripture and Tradition, and
in doing so is articulates that
Like scripture , dogmas live in the Tradition, with this difference that the scriptural canon forms a
determinate body which excludes all possibility of further increase, while the “dogmatic tradition,”
though keeping its stability as the “rule of faith” from which nothing can be cut off, can be
increased by receiving, to the extent that may be necessary, new expressions of revealed Truth,
formulated by the Church.34
In this way Lattier explains that “to use Lossky’s own terminology, the “horizontal” dimension of Traditon
can be increased, but not the vertical dimension”35 Whether or not one agrees with his reading of Lossky, the end
result is the same, the categories of horizontal and vertical may be useful ways to articulate the distinctions between
permissible and non-permissible development within the framework of tradition in the Eastern Orthodoxy.
Articulations of faith that develop within a particular culture or time can be understood as developing on the
horizontal plain. While, developments that actually change the concepts or wording of doctrine on a vertical plain
are corruptions.
Fr. John Behr a contemporary acknowledges a similar aspect of development in his review of Irenaeus.36
Behr acknowledges the changes in historical perspectives of those who receive and transmit doctrine, but stops well
short of the concept of doctrinal development. Doctrine is static, though it is not turgid, lifeless or moribund.
Because doctrine is static the expression can be dynamic. The static, eternal aspects of the deposit of faith and its
individual doctrines so guarded from innovation in the East is not a means to “stymie inquiry and reflection, but
rather to make it possible.” 37
Fr. Dumitru Staniloae, a systematic theologian from the East approaches the issue differently from
Florovsky’s historical anaylsis. He contends that the “dogmata” as received by the Fathers do indeed undergo a
development in expression as necessary to the life of the Church. Something that he will call “secular theology”
meaning that it applies to the age (latin secularae). In this way his monumental text Orthodox Dogmatic Theology is less
of a manual of systematic statements of Christian truth, and more or a personal confession of the meaning behind
the revelation of God to man38 In Theology and the Church he explains
Our words to God are both cataphatic and apophatic, that is they say something and yet at the same time
they suggest the ineffable. If we remain enclosed within our formulae they become idols; if we reject any
and every formula we drown in the undefined chaos of that ocean. Our words and thought are a finite
opening towards the infinite, transparencies for the infinite, so they are able to foster within us a spiritual
life.39
Staniloae can be said to blend the particular emphasis in Eastern and Western traditions regarding the
doctrinal development in a unique way. However, his conclusion is consistent with those named above, that is
doctrines in there expression may indeed develop however the limitations are clear. For Florovsky it is largely an

33 This use is proposed and used by Daniel Lattier in his article “The Orthodox Rejection of Doctrinal Development” p. 392.
34 Lossky, Image and Likeness, p. 166.
35 Lattier, p. 392.
36 Behr, The Way to Nicea, especially pages 33-40.
37 Ibid, p. 38. In his analysis of Irenaeus, he articulates that doctrine is static, but that this does not.
38 Miller, The Gift of the World, p. 21.
39
Staniloae, Theology and the Church, p. 73
issue of chronology, doctrinal developed happened in the past, but is not currently happening, for the others the
limits of doctrinal development are more connected to their horizontal and vertical trajectory. The litmus test for
authentic theology can be said to be three-fold. First it is connected to prayer “The theologian prays, and praying
theology, second it is connected to doxology,(Quote Yannaras, also Aidan Nichols insights) and third it is
connected to
Fr. Andrew Louth, another contemporary scholar acknowledges development and change in theological
expression, but not in the doctrinal truths themselves.40 His excellent essay which asks Is Development of Doctrine A
valid Category in the East examines not only the tought of other theologians but indicates his own as well. His own
position could be understood as a maturation of thought from his ....
Bs. KallistosWare follows Florovsky’s defense of a living tradition within limited parameters of change, but
in regards to development he differs proposing that “tradition, while inwardly changeless (for God does not
change), is constantly assuming new forms, which supplement the old without superseding them.”41
Like Newman, these theologians agree that in regard to doctrine, the truths as expressed by the Fathers of
the Church, and the Conciliar decrees, nothing can be added, broadened, or expanded upon. However as Louth
summarizes, “though the notion of development is bound up with way of historical understanding from which we
Orthodox have plenty to learn, the idea of development itself is not an acceptable category in Orthodox
theology.”42 Florovsky’s analysis of development and in particular his theory of “pseudo-morphosis,” has
influenced the works of the theologians who followed him, including those named above, and has significantly
contributed to the overall Orthodox understanding of development. Now then, a more detailed review of
“pseudo-morphosis” is necessary, which can illumine Florovsky’s position on the alternative theory of authentic
development, and add greater insight into the positions on development taken by the generation of theologians that
succeeded him.

Pseudo-morphosis
Florovsky first used the term “pseudo-morphosis” in a paper given at the First Pan-Orthodox Congress of
Theologians in Athens in 1936.43 “Pseudo-morphosis” was a term he borrowed from Oswald Spengler’s two part
work titled The Decline of the West. Spengler took this term from mineralogy, where it is used to describe the geological
process by which a void no longer occupied by its original material allows new material to enter into the voided
space, but forces it to conform itself to the shape left over from the original. In this way he envisaged that the
Western culture of the past left forms that constricted the natural growth of the Eastern culture, forcing it to think
in categories, and express itself in ways alien to its patrimony. He deduced the same process in the Russian culture
during the reign and reforms of Peter the Great (1682-1725). In Florovsky’s essay Western Influences in Russian
Theology, he reflected on the “dangerous borrowing from heterodox western sources”, which lead to a “forcible
pseudo-morphosis of Orthodox thought”, a process which began in Kyiv following the Union of Lublin in 1569

40 Louth, Is Development of Doctrine a Valid Category ... p. 60.

41 Ware, Orthodox Theology, p. 198.
42 Louth, Is Development of Doctrine a Valid Category ...p. 61. Emphasis added.
43 Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (Decline of the West). 1918 and 1922. In this text he posits a historical approach that

ignores linear epochs and looks to the evolution of cultures throughout history. In particular he finds in Russia a
“pseudo-morphosis“ under Peter the Great who fashions Russia under a European Dynastic model, rather than the tsardom
linked to its natural development. Cf Vol 2 Chap 2
and culminated between the Union of Brest (1596) and the Khmelnytsky (Cossack)Uprising (1648).44 This would
later become a prominent part of his magnum opus, Ways of Russian Theology, as well as a central and reoccurring
theme for Eastern Orthodox theologians and historians up to present day.45 Similar to Spengler’s source of political
“pseudo-morphosis” in Peter the Great, Florovsky found a religious analog in Peter Mohyla the Metropolitan of
Kyiv(1632-1647). Florovsky’s interpretation of the encounter in Kyiv has played an important role in how the
various changes to liturgy and catechesis in the Metropolia of Kyiv from 1596-1648 have been studied and received
by modern scholarship.46 In the second chapter of Ways of Russian Theology, he recounts and comments on the events
beginning with the Union of Lublin in 1569, and ends roughly after the death of Metropolitan Peter Mohyla in 1647.
He states the question early in his analysis: “Could the Byzantine tradition be safely allowed in a country more and
more attuned to western thought?”47 And further on, “Could the Byzantine tradition be maintained strictly as it
was, or must new forms be devised?"48 He identifies the major challenges to Orthodoxy, and in the responses of the
Kyivan church he finds the “tint” of Latinization.49 In the encounter between the Roman Catholicism of the West
and the Orthodoxy of the East, the various external forces of the protestant reformation, and the fluctuating
influence of Constantinople under Ottoman Rule, Florovsky admits that the preservation of Orthodoxy in Kyiv
required “a creative reconstruction of belief,”50 though no example is given of what this reconstruction might look
like.51 Rather than a “restatement of the Orthodox faith,”52 he finds a tacit acceptance of Western forms that
ultimately would corrupt the ethos of Orthodoxy. This “ethos of Orthodoxy,” he will later explain, is
simultaneously kerygmatic and patristic,53 and is maintained by “acquiring” the phronema, or minds of the fathers,
and not just by quoting them in theological abstraction, as was common in the theological manuals of the West that
influenced the East during this period.54 The process of gradual acquiescence to the Western model of theology is,
for Florovsky, clear evidence of “pseudo-morphosis,” and implies that the change experienced in Kyiv was a false
change, an artificial development, a distortion of the authentic movement of the Holy Spirit. While Florovsky saw
this as the overall result of the exchange between East and West, he also recognised distinct periods in the process
of pseudo-morphosis. Three particular stages can be indentified in the progression of “pseudo-morphosis” in his
historical analysis of the encounter with the West. These stages are helpful to understand the parameters of the

44 Florovsky, Aspects of Church History, p.157. Cited in Brandon Gallaher. Waiting for the Barbarians, p. 664.
45 For a good list of the theologians that Florovsky’s view have influenced see Gallaher, pg 659. Kallistos Ware also defends this
position especially in his analysis of Peter Mohyla in Eustratios Argenti: A study of the Greek Church under Turkish rule, p. 97.
46 Despite his influence, not all agree with Florovsky’s view that he outlined in “Ways of Russian Theology.” His immediate

critics included longtime friend, Nicolai Berdyaev, who argued that Florovsky’s appeal to antiquity was naive, and excluded
contemporary thought. Ortodoksiya Chelovechnost’. (Prot. Georgii Florovskii. Puti russkogo bogosloviya). Journal Put’,
apr.-july, 1937, No. 53, p. 53-65. Modern critics are perhaps a bit more nuanced willing to admit the truth in some of Florovsky’s
assertions, but using different historical methods to critique his concept of “pseudo-morphosis”. These modern critics include
MA Korzo MA Korzo, “Pseudomorph” Kiev and Moscow Orthodox XVII Century: Two Examples: Innocent Gizel and
Simeon. «Псевдоморфоза» Киевского и Московского Православия XVII в.Два примера: Иннокентий Гизель и Симеон
Полоцкий, and Francis Thomson"Peter Mogila's Ecclesiastical Reforms and the Ukrainian Contribution to Russian Culture: A
Critique of Georges Florovsky's Theory of 'the Pseudo-morphosis of Orthodoxy."' Slavica Gandensia 20 (1993): 67–119 . See
Frank Sysyn’s “Recent Western Works”, also notably the Professor Nikos Matsoukas from Thessalonica University, Scholastic
Influences On Greek-Orthodox Manuals of Dogmatic and Symbolic Theology During the 20th Century. The Greek Orthodox Theological
Review. Vo 45, Nos. 1-4, 2000. 553-572.
47 Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, 34.
48 Ibid, 36.
49 Ibid, 50.
50 Ibid, 35.
51 Ibid, 36.
52 Ibid.
53 Florovsky, Ethos of Orthodoxy, p. 187.
54 Ibid, 189. Note that Florovsky and Newman describe and explain “phronema” φρόνημα in distinct ways. Newman describes

it as an “instinct” cf. On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine, 1859. Whereas Florovsky describes it as a discipline of
orthodoxy and orthopraxis leading towards “theosis”.
pseudomorphic change that Florovsky found in Mohyla, and what aspects of Mohyla’s reforms may be acceptable,
or at least neutral in their affect on the ethos of Orthodoxy. This is an important consideration often overlooked by
those who accept Florovsky’s claims regarding Mohyla’s reforms.

Stage 1 “Ambiguous pseudo-morphosis” The Ostrog Circle 1570-1580

In the 1570’s and 80’s the Ostrog circle, a group of Orthodox nobleman and clergy who attempted to
maintain and advance the position of Orthodoxy among the incursions of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism,
established a school and published the first complete Slavic Bible.55 Their approaches and appreciation of Western
Humanism lead to what Florovsky describes as an “ambiguous pseudo-morphosis.”56 During this stage a familiarity
with the West was accepted and the integration of Western texts was allowed, but not at the expense of Eastern
sources. For example, the school in Ostrog taught Latin, but Greek and Slavonic held higher rank. According to
Florovsky, in the translation of the Bible, and within the educational system, there was a “conscious and critical
attempt to adhere to the Greek textual tradition.”57 It is during this period that the great scholars of Kyiv were
Western trained in the schools of Vilna, Venice and Vienna, with very few options for advanced studies in Eastern
institutions.58 Even the celebrated school in L’viv studied Western learning, but the school’s “ethos,” Florovsky
states, “was Hellenic,” that is, true to its Eastern patrimony.59 Boundaries were eventually blurred as expedience in
addressing the incursions of Roman Catholicism took precedence over confessional affiliations. Protestant and
anti-Trinitarian thinkers were ultimately employed to defend Orthodoxy from the attacks of the Roman polemicist,
not because of their assent to Eastern theology, but because of their effective rhetoric, and the mutual enemy they
both found in the Jesuits who rapidly advanced in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.60 It was towards the end
of this period that there was less and less ambiguity in the acceptance of, and even dependence on, Western sources.
This situation led the Athonite monk Ivan Vishenskii to the radical position of arguing in favour of abandoning
everything tainted by Western theology. He called for a rejection of all scholasticism and western sophistry.61
However, his position did not gain popular support among the hierarchy, and many were, by then, leaning towards
union with Rome as a means to securing both political and religious stability in the region.62

Stage 2 Practical Pseudo-morphosis: The Union of Brest 1596-1627

Between the “ambiguous” and final “pseudo-morphosis” there was another subtle transitory stage in

55 A Glagolitic version of the Gospels and Cyrillic version of the Gospels and Psalter existed since the mid 11th century (cf
Spinka, 430). Partial Bibles were published in various Slavic dialects. Metropolitan Gennadius compiled a complete edition in
1499, which was later published in 1581 by the Ostrog Circle.
56 Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, 36.
57 Ibid, 45.
58 See maps of available schools and confessional affiliation in Ambroise Jorbert’s De Luther a Mohila, pp. 242-245.
59 Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, p. 58. Note it would be Lviv who would later send tutors to train young Peter Mohyla.

See August 7th. Mohyla’s mother request tutors from L’viv. “Margareta Mohilina, woiewodzina woloska” “les pretres et le
professeur de nos fils” “pour que la vérité et le mensonge soient démontrés” see ft 83 in M. Cazacu, Pierre Mohyla (Petru Movila) et
la Roumanie: Essai historique et bibliographique.
60 Mainly the Jesuit, Peter Skarga who relentlessly attacked the Orthodox for being unlearned, and in schism with the true

Church. On the Unity of the Church of God under One Pastor [O iedosci kosciola Bozego pod iednym pasterzem y o Greckim
od tey iednosci odstapieniu, z prezest oroga y upominaniem do narodow ruskich przy Grekach stojacych, Vilna, 1577. See
Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, Chapter 2 footnote p. 80.
61 Goldblatt, On the Language Beliefs of Ivan Vyšens'kyj and the Counter-Reformation, p. 8. See also Goldblatt’s 1992, Ivan Vysens’kyj’s

Conception of St. John Chrysostom and his idea of Reform for the Ruthenia Lands, regarding a conflict with supporting the hierarchy, and
clerical approach to reformation.
62 The first Council of Kyiv in 1590 considered under what conditions union with Rome would look like, cf. Gudziak, Crisis and

Reform, p. 214.
Florovsky’s analysis. By the time the Union of Brest was accomplished in 1596, a new process of
“pseudo-morphosis” had begun. The creation of an Orthodox Church in union with Rome ultimately led to the
suppression of those who rejected the Union. The resulting situation was two competing Orthodox allegiances: one
was the Unia, as those in union with Rome would be called, the other was the existing hierarchy that resisted the
terms of Union as defined by the Council of Brest.63 The hierarchy and property of those opposed to union with
Rome became technically illegal, unrecognized and therefore unprotected by the Polish Crown. In reaction against
the Unia a new generation of Orthodox Bishops, comfortable with Western learning, sought to maintain themselves
despite their technically illegal status in the Commonwealth.
This new generation of leaders defended Orthodoxy by using Western books, studying in Jesuit schools,
and producing literature that could compete with the sources used by both the Roman Catholics, and by the
Uniates. By this time “it was becoming increasingly obvious that no revival and indeed no steady development was
possible for the Orthodox Church without the cross-fertilization of its Byzantine heritage with the achievements of
the west.”64 This generation of prominent churchmen learned to successfully defend Orthodoxy by using the
intellectual weapons of the West, and it was this generation who would become the official leaders of Orthodoxy in
the restoration of 1620, some 24 years later.65 To Florovsky, this phenomenon marked a clear shift. The theological
enterprise of Kyiv shifted from using Western sources as supplements to Eastern learning, to depending on
Western sources to define Eastern thought in the debate with the West. The former he recognized as an “authentic
cultural inspiration,”66 the latter as a penetration of “Roman Catholic style of theology […] into the Kievan
scholarly community.”67 This penetration lead to a greater dependence on and facility for using Western sources,
however it was still used primarily as a defensive tool. While its influence grew, the senior ranking hierarchs typically
used these Western approaches for defense against the Roman Catholics, Uniates and Protestants, and not for the
advancement of the faith in general. In this period occurred what one could call a “practical pseudo-morphosis,”
where the Western forms were accepted for defensive endeavours, but not for offensive ones. It was used reactively
to protect the Orthodox faith, but not used pro-actively to promote and teach the Orthodox faith to her faithful.

Stage 3 Final Pseudo-morphosis: The Career of Peter Mohyla 1627-1647

This shift would eventually lead to what Florovsky referred to as a “Roman Catholic domination,”68 which
penetrated every aspect of how Orthodoxy thought and reacted to the challenges it faced. This period corresponded
with the administration of Peter Mohyla as Archimandrite of the Caves Monastery in Kiev, a bastion of Orthodoxy,
who Florovsky ultimately holds responsible for the final shift in ethos. In this final stage, Florovsky no-longer refers
to the changes as an “ambiguous pseudo-morphosis”; rather he found in the career of Mohyla, who was raised to
the Metropolitan of Kyiv in 1632, an “open disregard of the Greek tradition,”69 a “radical and thorough

63 For a review of this very complex period see Gudziak Chapter 13.
64 Charipova, Latin Books…, p. 34
65 Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, p. 60. See also Angold, Eastern Christianity, p. 309, also Sevchenko, Many Worlds, “use the

weapons of the enemies,” p. 20.

66 As in the case of the 1627 Catechism of Lawrence Zizanni which he credits as built on authentic eastern sources. Florovsky,

Ways of Russia Theology, pp. 59-60. Cf also Thomson, Peter Mogila's ecclesiastical reforms... p. 71.
67 Ibid, p. 61.
68 Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, p. 71.
69 Ibid.
Latinization of the Eastern rite”, and a “drastic Romanization of the Orthodox Church.”70 He summarizes the
advances and successes of Mohyla as follows: “true, he found the Church in ruins and had to rebuild, but he built a
foreign edifice on the ruins.”71 He is willing to admit that Mohyla, might have acted under good faith and for good
reasons, and even maintained “a general faithfulness to Orthodox forms,” but the results for Florovsky are the
same: a corruption of the original ethos of Eastern Orthodoxy.72 In this way the “pseudo-morphosis” came not
from the hands of the Uniates, but rather from the generation of those who resisted union with Rome, but “were
forced to ‘think in essentially alien categories to express themselves in foreign concepts.’”73
Florovsky answers critics that argue Mohyla’s changes were in form and not substance; “this,” Florovsky
says, “ignores the truth that form shapes substance, and if an unsuitable form does not distort substance, it prevents
its natural growth.”74 For Florovsky, “this is the meaning of “pseudo-morphosis,”75 the adaptation of a new form
with the unintended consequence of altering its substance. In this way the final stage of “pseudo-morphosis” was
fait accompli during the reign of Peter Mohyla. In this last stage it becomes clear that while there are perceptible
degrees of “pseudo-morphosis” in the thought of Florovsky, there was an inevitable momentum that built during
the exchange between the East and West in Kyiv that ultimately forced it to defend itself in new ways which were
altogether alien to her experience. In his book Aspects of Church History, Florovsky summarizes the effect form has on
substance by explaining “that Scholasticism screened and obstructed Patristics...it was a psychological and cultural
Latinization rather than a matter of creed.”76

Authentic Morphosis
The new approaches to defending Orthodoxy that appeared are what Florovsky found so disconcerting in
the situation in Kyiv, and specifically in the Orthodox Confession of Peter Mohyla.77 Not only did he think Mohyla’s
Orthodox Confession was alien in its form, but he also believed it depended on the development of a new way of
thinking about and articulating the faith, which, despite its success in renewing and strengthening Orthodoxy in the
Commonwealth, ultimately lead to a “split in Orthodox consciousness.”78 That is a separation from its patristic and
Eastern roots where by the ritual, language, theology, worldview and religious psychology become Latinized.79 Can
this split of consciousness be reconciled for Florovsky? Was there an alternative “Authentic Morphosis?” Was there
an acceptable theological development that would simultaneously respect the patrimony of the East while
articulating and defending itself against both Protestantism and Catholicism in the West? Church historians could
suggest that Mohyla’s project is precisely that attempt, but without a category of development, Florovsky simply
cannot envisage a process that would lead incrementally to something altogether different than before. While the
Eastern Church has precedence to great theological treatises, it does not have in her history a tradition of dogmatic

70 Ibid, p. 72.
71 Ibid.
72 Ibid, p. 77.
73 Gallaher, Waiting for the Barbarians, p. 664.
74 Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, p. 70.
75 Ibid.
76 Florovsky, Aspects of Church History, p. 166. This same criticism is even more harshly made by Christos Yannaras Orthodoxy and

the West, cf. Chap. 2.

77 Ware found the same trouble with Mohyla’s Confession saying that “even in its revised form the Confession of Moghila is still

the most Latin document ever to be adopted by an official Council of the Orthodox Church” and that it was clearly Augustinian
in outlook. Kallistos, The Orthodox Church, p. 97.
78 Florovsky, Aspects of Church History, p. 178.
79 Ibid
manuals that seek to systematize the entire deposit of faith into one text, and to do so cataphatically.81 In
Florovsky’s view the Orthodox faith is “an unbroken historic continuity…an ultimate spiritual and ontological
identity” maintained by “following the Holy Fathers.”82 Anything that does not “acquire their mind, their phronema”
is ultimately alien to the Church.83 Neither doctrine, nor the forms used to defend and articulate it develop.84 In
Kyiv we find development, we find change and articulation of the timeless truths in new ways. When dogma is “not
a discursive axiom which is accessible to logical development”85 a “pseudo-morphosis” is the only way that
Florovsky could describe the changes in Kyiv during the time of Mohyla.

There were some new approaches for defending the faith that Florovsky acknowledges and supports in
Kyiv which are an indication of the alternative to Mohyla he desired. Rather than Mohyla’s Orthodox Confession and its
reliance on Western forms and sources, he advocates the more mystical work of Isaiah Kopinskii’s Spiritual Alphabet:
Ladder for the Spiritual Life in God,86 which he considers more true to the apophatic tradition of the East. While it
remains unclear in his critique of Mohyla how an existing form in Orthodoxy would have satisfied the needs of the
time, it is clear why Mohyla’s reforms where unacceptable to him. It would be an overstatement and disingenuous to
say that Florovsky finds evidence of “pseudo-morphosis” in all change, or that everything coming from the West is
in opposition with the Orthodox ethos. In this way Florovsky is not xenophobic like Vishenskii, nor an overt critic
of the West as was Spengler. For example, Florovsky does not find anything necessarily contrary in Aristotle,87 or
the education system of the Jesuits, or anything alien in the use of “Latin,” though he doubts that Greek or Slavonic
was in need of Latin to help articulate doctrine.88 What Florovsky finds unacceptable, alien, and ultimately contrary
to Orthodoxy, is the acceptance of these Latin influences at the expense of Eastern patrimony. In his view the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were not a “free encounter” between two cultures, but a radical compromise
and surrender by one to the other.89

Conclusion
In Florovsky’s view Stage 1, that is “ambiguous pseudo-morphosis,” is not of itself contrary to the ethos of
Orthodoxy, though it is an abstraction of it. In a similar way Stage 2, what has here been labelled as “practical
pseudo-morphosis,” is also allowed, provided that the theologians engaged in the debate use Western categories
only in their defense and dialogue with that particular audience. This would be where Florovsky would have hoped
that the Confessions of Peter Mohyla and Dositheus would have remained, as “occasional polemical writings
addressed primarily to the problems of the Western controversy,”90 rather than manuals for teaching the faith.

81 This is not to say that systematic theology is foreign to the East. The great councils all created systematic defences of the faith
as did St. John of Damascus in his Ékdosis akribès tēs Orthodóxou Písteōs, and the collective corpus of the Cappadocian fathers.
However these texts are very different in their arrangement, approach and content from Mohyla’s work.
82 Florovsky, Ethos, p. 186.
83 Ibid, p. 189.
84 For this reason Florovsky rejects that Eastern Orthodoxy can ever have “Symbolic books.” Ethos, 183.
85 Florovsky, Revelation, Philosophy and Theology, p. 87.
86 Ibid, p. 70.
87 In Phase #1, “Ambiguous Pseudo-morphosis, it was not the Western Scholastic learning that threatened as much as its broad

acceptance. In Ethos, Florovsky quotes St. Gregory Nazianzus saying that the father theologized “in the manner of the apostles,
and not in that of Aristotle” (Hom. XXIII.12) p. 188.
88 Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, p. 68.
89 Florovsky, Ways of Russian Theology, p. 66.
90 Florovsky, Ethos, p. 183.
However, it is clear from Florovsky that the gradual dependence on alien forms for defense will eventually corrupt
how and what the Church turns towards to pro-actively teach the faith. In other words Stage 2 “practical
pseudo-morphosis” nearly always leads to Stage 3 “pseudo-morphosis.”
While Florovsky advocated for a “neo-patristic synthesis”91 to his modern contemporaries, it is not clear if
he felt this approach would have been feasible in the sixteenth and seventeenth Century Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth. Rather, it appears that he desired what could be called a “dynamic-stasis;” an energetic and creative
ressourcement that would reassert the fundamental Orthodox ethos, but in a way that could be received and
understood by the West. There is evidence that this is exactly what Mohyla and his contemporaries attempted to
do.92 However, the result for those who view the legacy of Mohyla through the lens of “pseudo-morphosis,” was
that rather than helping their antagonist learn the language of Orthodoxy, Mohyla and his contemporaries translated
Orthodoxy into a foreign language, and ultimately corrupted its ethos. This perspective greatly limits the study of
Mohyla’s unique contribution to Eastern Church and unfortunately rejects the idea of any authentic theological
development that would lead towards the development of a catechetical text like Mohyla’s Orthodox Confession. The
subtle distinctions between the stages of “pseudo-morphosis” in the thought of Florovsky as demonstrated in this
paper should also be applied to the works of Mohyla, the individual that he felt best illustrated his theory. Rather
than rejecting the entire written corpus of Mohyla as a pseudomorph one should examine it carefully, considering
what aspects may reflect authentic theological development, and be willing to apply these to the current theological
development in the Church. What of Mohyla’s reforms or approaches are within the categories of “ambiguous” and
“practical pseudo-morphosis?” What aspects may be authentic developments? And finally, what can those aspects
which reflect genuine “pseudo-morphosis” teach us about the parameters of development and catechesis in the
Eastern tradition? The three stages of “pseudo-morphosis” as outlined in this paper are useful tools for better
understanding the nuanced view of history in the thought of Fr. Georges Florovsky, one of Russian Orthodoxy’s
most preeminent theologians and historians.

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