Azkoul, Michael

Fr. Michael Azkoul, of the Holy Orthodox Church of North America, is the author of Ye Are Gods: Salvation According to the Latin Fathers (Synaxis Press, 2002); One Delivered to the Saints: An Orthodox Apology for the New Millennium (St. Nectarius Press, 2000), and The Toll-House Myth: The Neo-Gnosticism of Fr Seraphim Rose (Synaxis Pres, 1998). Fr. Azkoul’s articles have appeared in The True Vine and The Patristic and Byzantine Review.

God, Immortality and Freedom of the Will According to the Church Fathers

2006 0-7734-5640-6
The purpose of this study is to offer the “philosophy” of the Greek and Latin Fathers without the parochial biases of Western scholarship. From the Latin Middle Ages, when the Masters or Scholastics ruled the intellectual world of the occident, until the present day, the work of the Fathers has been characterized as a synthesis of Christian and Hellenic thought, not unlike the philosophical theology of Thomas Aquinas, a synthesis anticipated by Augustine of Hippo, who, along with several other famous Christian writers (Tatian, Clement and Origen of Alexandria, Tertullian, etc.) cannot be numbered among the Fathers without negating the consensus patrum. In other words, we must look upon the Greek and Latin Fathers as holy men, sharing a common faith, fellows of the same theological tradition, witnesses to, not creators of, “the Faith once delivered to the saints.” To demonstrate this thesis, this book examines not only the patristic conception of philosophy, but also its treatment of those three grand philosophical problems (if we may believe Immanuel Kant) in terms of their “philosophy”: God, immortality and freedom of the will. This work will appeal to scholars of church history and patrology.

Influence of Augustine of Hippo on the Orthodox Church

1991 0-88946-733-1
Shows that Augustine created a "Greek-Christian synthesis" based on Neo-Platonism, which removes him from the Orthodox mind and the Patristic tradition. Argues that the theology of Augustine is not the apex of the Patristic tradition, but the beginning of a new one, and is incompatible with the theology of the Orthodox Church, with the difference between the two accounting in part for the separation of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.

St. Gregory of Nyssa and the Tradition of the Fathers

1995 0-7734-8993-2
This study refutes the ordinary description of St. Gregory as would-be philosopher in the Greek tradition. First, it describes the world-view of the holy Fathers, holding that it is to their fellowship that he belonged, not the Platonic tradition of the philosophies of Plotinus, Philo, and Origen of Alexandria. Chapters compare St. Gregory to these alleged models and sources, and he matches none of them. The study also holds that the works of St. Gregory were adulterated by his enemies, probably during the sixth-century Origenist revival, as his orthodoxy was never questioned by anyone until the time that the latter followers of Origen associated him with their cause. This study opens up a new direction in the study of religion, contributes to the 'rehabilitation' of St. Gregory and the Christian Tradition to which he was a preeminent witness.