All thinkers
Theologian · Contemporary
Josyf Slipyj
1892–1984 · Eastern Catholic confessor; Thomist-trained theologian
Catholic
Ukrainian Greek Catholic
Major Archbishop and (by self-designation, recognized in practice) Patriarch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church; cardinal; eighteen years in Soviet camps; cause for beatification opened.
Sheptytsky's successor, a theologian trained at Innsbruck and Rome who wrote on the Trinity and the Holy Spirit, was arrested by the Soviets in 1945 and spent eighteen years in the Gulag for refusing to abandon union with Rome. Freed in 1963, he spoke at Vatican II for the rights of Eastern Churches, founded the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome, and claimed the patriarchal dignity for his Church.
Why he matters: The great confessor of the twentieth-century Eastern Catholic Churches, whose witness showed that communion with Peter and fidelity to the Kyivan tradition are worth eighteen years of prison; his push for patriarchal status shaped Eastern Catholic self-understanding.
Reading
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Spiritual TestamentJosyf Slipyj · His last word to his Church.
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MemoirsJosyf Slipyj (ed. Ivan Dacko, Maria Horiacha) · The confessor's own account.
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Confessor Between East and West: A Portrait of Ukrainian Cardinal Josyf SlipyjJaroslav Pelikan · The standard study of his life and theology.
Documented positions
Where this thinker stands on each dispute the test covers.
Settled teaching
Its center
Open question
Beyond teaching, not condemned
Condemned error
I
God and Being · What is, and whence it is.
Can reason know that God exists?
Natural theology
Fideism or agnosticism
Natural theology
How is God related to the world?
Creation from nothing
Pantheism or emanation
Creation from nothing
Is the world governed by purpose?
Providence and final causes
Chance and mechanism
Providence and final causes
Do natures and essences really exist?
Realism
Nominalism
Realism
God's essence and His energies
Between
Essence–energies distinction
Absolute simplicity
II
Faith, Reason and Truth · How we know, and whom we trust.
Faith and reason: who has the last word?
Between
Rationalism
Fideism
Is truth objective?
Objective truth
Relativism and pragmatism
Objective truth
Who interprets revelation?
Living Tradition and Magisterium
Private judgment
Living Tradition and Magisterium
Does doctrine develop?
Between
Always the same, in the same words
A living development
Are the world's learning and arts a danger or a gift?
A gift to be baptized
A danger: Athens has nothing to do with Jerusalem
A gift to be baptized
III
The Human Person · Soul, body, freedom and the Fall.
Is there a spiritual soul?
Immortal spiritual soul
Mind is brain
Immortal spiritual soul
Are you free?
Free will
Determinism
Free will
Marriage, sex and the body's meaning
Given by nature and grace
Given by nature and grace
Defined by consent and identity
What is suffering for?
A share in the Cross
An evil to be relieved
A share in the Cross
IV
The Moral Life · Law, virtue, conscience and the good.
Is morality objective and knowable?
Natural law
Relativism
Natural law
Are some acts always wrong?
Intrinsically evil acts
Consequentialism
Intrinsically evil acts
What is conscience?
Conscience bound to truth
Autonomous conscience
Conscience bound to truth
What is happiness?
Beatitude in God
Earthly flourishing
Beatitude in God
V
Grace and Salvation · How God saves, and whom.
How are we made right with God?
Infused, transforming grace
Forensic imputation
Infused, transforming grace
What is salvation for?
Deification
Pardon and escape
Deification
Where does your eye rest in Christ: His divinity or His humanity?
The eternal Word made flesh
The eternal Word made flesh
The man Jesus of Nazareth
VI
Church and Society · Authority, the state, wealth and the nation.
Church and state
Social kingship of Christ
Laicism
Social kingship of Christ
The economic order
Between
Socialism
Laissez-faire capitalism
Where does authority come from?
Authority from God
Social contract
Authority from God
Reform or tradition?
Guided by tradition
Remake by reason
Guided by tradition
The nation and the Church
Nation or race first
Nation or race first
Nation does not matter
May the state restrain false religion?
Civil liberty for every religion
The confessional state: error has no rights
Civil liberty for every religion
Which form of government best suits a Christian people?
Between
Monarchy and hierarchy
Democracy and participation
May a Christian take up the sword?
Between
Never: the way of the Cross is nonviolence
Yes: war can be just and sometimes a duty
VII
Worship, Prayer and the Two Lungs · Liturgy, icons, the Spirit, and the See of Peter.
Liturgical development
Receive and develop organically
Reconstruct and innovate
Receive and develop organically
Icons and images
Veneration of images
Iconoclasm
Veneration of images
The way of prayer
Stillness and the Jesus Prayer
Stillness and the Jesus Prayer
Discursive meditation
The procession of the Holy Spirit
From the Father through the Son
From the Father through the Son
From the Father and the Son (Filioque)
The office of Peter
Universal and immediate primacy
Conciliarism
Universal and immediate primacy
What do the sacraments do?
Efficacious ex opere operato
Signs only
Efficacious ex opere operato
The Second Vatican Council
Between
Reject the Council
A new beginning
When the Pope speaks
Every word binds
Resist and judge
Every word binds
Holy Orders and the Church's constitution
A clerical Church
A clerical Church
Reformable by the people
Should the faith take the forms of each culture it enters?
The Gospel in each people's own forms
One form everywhere
The Gospel in each people's own forms
What are the Eastern Catholic Churches?
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Rites of the one Roman Church
Sister Churches with their own rights and theology
Contemplation or action?
Between
Action: the apostolate and the works of mercy
Contemplation: the one thing needful