Dr. Timothy Patitsas (MDiv 1994), Interim Dean of Hellenic College and Assistant Professor of Ethics at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, has just published a book on The Ethics of Beauty (St. Nicholas Press).
The book argues that the Orthodox Christian approach to spiritual life has always been a "Beauty-first" one, laying out examples of how this applies in topics ranging from creation to political theory to the Jesus Prayer, including war, psychology, trauma, chastity, healthy shame, gender, marriage, hospitality, art, architecture, theology, economics, urban planning, and complexity theory.
Asked how and why he came to write the book, Dr. Patitsas says, "This book is the culmination of a lifelong journey to explain the mystical ethos of Orthodox thought and life in terms that the average American can relate to. In doing so, I had to go back to the fourth century to explain how and why Western and Eastern approaches to spirituality began to differ--and why Beauty is the starting point for Orthodox faith."
