HYMN OF ENTRY by Archimandrite Vasileios (now Abbot of the Iveron Monastery, Mount Athos)
Hymn of Entry is not a long book, and yet in a few pages it offers nothing less than a fresh vision of theology, the Church and the world – a vision that is both original and yet genuinely traditional. On a first reading, at times I wondered: why is the author seemingly so cryptic, so enigmatic in his approach? Why is the argument so often left apparently undeveloped, broken off before it is fully begun? Yet then, rereading the text, I have begun to see how everything fits together in it, and I have remarked to myself: surely he has said neither too little nor too much; if we are to write theology, it can only be in such a way as this. There are some patristic works, says Fr Vasileios, that you cannot read without being changed; you do not “dissect” them, it is they that “dissect” you. He has himself written exactly such a book. Its title Hymn of Entry is singularly appropriate. For the author does not simply point to the Holy City in a detached manner from the outside, but he takes us by the hand and says to us on every page: Enter. [From the Foreword, by Bishop Kallistos Ware]
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