Faculty & Staff

Very Revd Professor John Behr

Adjunct Professor of Theology (Patristic Studies)

Academic Classification

Professor, MTh (St Vladimir’s 1997)
PhD (Oxford, 1995)
MPhil (Oxford, 1991)
BA (Thames Polytechnic, 1987)

Websites

https://frjohnbehr.com/

Very Revd Professor John Behr

Adjunct Professor of Theology (Patristic Studies)

Prior to holding the Regius Chair in Humanity at the University of Aberdeen, Very Revd Professor Behr spent twenty-five years teaching at St Vladimir’s Seminary in New York, where he also served as Dean for a decade. He has taught at other schools in the US, such as Harvard Divinity and Fordham University, and as the Metropolitan Kallistos Chair of Orthodox Theology at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam. Metropolitan Kallistos was his doctoral supervisor at Oxford University, where, after studying philosophy in London, he researched the topic of asceticism and anthropology in Irenaeus of Lyons and Clement of Alexandria. After a decade of teaching in most areas of early Christian and Byzantine studies, he began the publication of a series entitled The Formation of Christian Theology. In preparation for further volumes, he edited and translated the Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Armenian fragments of Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, setting them in their historical and theological context. However, realizing that to go further into the sixth century also meant returning to, and reconsidering, Origen, Fr Behr prepared a new edition and translation of his work On First Principles together with an extensive introduction. Having also completed a full study of Irenaeus a few years earlier, he was drawn yet further back, to the Gospel of John, putting his findings from decades of research on the early Christian writers, as the earliest readers of John, into dialogue with contemporary readers of John, both scriptural scholars and also, returning to my earlier studies, the French Phenomenologist Michel Henry, as an act of constructive theology.

Publications

Books

John the Theologian and His Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). Russian translation in preparation; Romanian and Serbian being considered.
Origen: On First Principles, Oxford Early Christian Texts, 2 volumes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
The Cross Stands: Homilies for the Cycles of the Year(Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2014) Romanian translation in preparation.
Irenaeus of Lyons: Identifying Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)

Books Edited

The Role of Life in Death: A Multidisciplinary Examination of Issues pertaining to Life and Death, ed. with C. Cunningham (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015).
With Louth, A., and Conomos, D. (eds.). Abba: The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003).

Translations

Origen, On First Principles: A Reader’s Edition(Oxford University Press, 2020).
St Athanasius, On the Incarnation (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012).
St Irenaeus of Lyons, On the Apostolic Preaching (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997).

Chapters in Books

‘The Cross.’ In P. Blowers and P. Martens, eds, The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019): 623-36.
‘Flesh Invested with the Paternal Light: St Irenaeus on the Transfiguration of the Body’ (In Russian), forthcoming in proceedings of the Fifth Moscow International Patristics Conference, April 2018; Festschrift for Alexander Golitzin (Brill).
‘The Glory of God: A Living Human Being.’ In Elie Ayroulet, ed., Saint Irénée et l’Humanité Illuminée (Paris: Cerf, 2018): 93-116.
‘The Holy and Great Council 2016.’ In Synodality: A Forgotten and Misapprehended Vision: Reflections on the Holy and Great Council of 2016, in Maxim Vasiljevic and Andrej Jeftic eds., (Alhambra CA: Sebastian Press, 2017): 13-22.
‘John 18:28–19:16: Witnessing Truth.’ In Chad Raith II, ed. The Gospel of John: Theological-Ecumenical Readings (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2017): 178-91.

Peer Reviewed Articles

‘St Irenaeus of Lyons and the School of St John.’ Phronema 34:2 (2019): 1-33.
‘Unveiling the Pathos of Life: The Phenomenology of Michel Henry and the Theology of John the Evangelist.’ In Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy 26.2 (2018): 104-26.
‘One God Father Almighty.’ Modern Theology 34:4 (2018): 320-30.

Other Publications

‘Mission in the Modern Age.’ Oxbridge Philokalic Review (Spring, 2009).
‘Diversity and Dialogue in the Service of Communion: The Example of St Irenaeus of Lyons.’ One in Christ 51:1 (2017): 21-36.
‘Lifting the Veil: Reading Scripture in the Orthodox Tradition.’ Sobornost 38:1 (2016): 74-90.
‘Take Back Death! Christian Witness in the Twenty-First Century.’ Koinonia 64 (2014):7-22.
‘The Christian Art of Dying.’ Sobornost 35:1-2 (2013): 136-47.