Friday, 18 July 2025

The Book of Revelation by Archimandrite Antipas


About the book: The Relevation of Saint John the Evangelist forms a worthy conclusion to the whole of sacred Scripture, presenting a wonderful counterpart to the first book, the Book of Genesis. It is a sacred text which has resounded through the centuries and has exercised an enormous influence.

Within the pages of this book, we find the Church herself presented as she has always lived her life and always will live it until the end of the world. Moreover, this book was written exclusively for her, for her fulfilment, for her final destiny. That is why however many times we read the pages of the Apocalypse we hear the voice of the Ancient of Days reaching us, the voice of the Church's Bridegroom, like the sound of many waters: "He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches".

For centuries now, people have pored over the Book of Revelation and have been curious about the Sacred Cave of the Theophany seeking to penetrate its meaning and venerate with devotion the traces of the disciple of Love. 

This book (2009, 2018, Athos Publications) aspires to prepare the reader for such holy and mystical veneration, setting out appropriately what relates to the theological significance of the Apocalypse.

The Book of Revelation (2018) is translated from the Greek by Normal Russell. 

About the author: Archimandrite Antipas, the Abbot of Patmos, in the world Paul Nikitaras, was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1962. In 1968, his family moved back to Patmos, its place of origin. He studied at the Patmias Ecclesiastical School and subsequently at the Faculty of Theology of the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. In 1986, he was tonsured a monk at the celebrated Monastery of the Theologian on Patmos. In February 1988, he was ordained deacon by the Rt Revd Metropolitan of Philadelphia, the present Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, and in 1991, was ordained to the priesthood by the same elder, at that time Metropolitan of Chalcedon. In September 1988, he was appointed a professor at the Patmian School. In 1993, he founded the journal Iera Apokalypsis, which he edited from the holy kathisma of St Nektarios of Loukakia and to which he frequently contributed. 

In 1997, after eleven years service in the Patriarchal Exarchate, he moved with his community to Mount Athos, where he devoted himself to the revival of the Kellion, or Cell, of Sts Theodore, a dependency of the Monastery of Koutloumousiou. In October 1998, he was awarded a doctorate at the University of Thessaloniki with a dissertation entitled "The Holy Monastery and Patriarchal Exarchate of Patmos". 

In January 2000, he was elected Abbot of the Holy Monastery of John the Theologian and Evangelist of Patmos and Patriarchal Exarch of Patmos, and restored the monastery to the coenobitic life. In November of the same year, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of the University of Oradea in Romania. He has written a number of books and studies.

About the translator: Norman Russell, an Orthodox translator and patristic scholar of partial Greek descent, is an Honorary Research Fellow at St Stephen's House, University of Oxford and Professor of Patristics and Byzantine Theology at the Istituto Teologico di Santa Eufemia di Calcedonia, of the Orthodox Exarchate of Italy. He is the author of acclaimed The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (2004), Metaphysics as a Personal Adventure: Christos Yannaras in Conversation with Norman Russell (2017), and Gregory Palamas and the Making of Palamism in the Modern Age (2019).

No comments:

Post a Comment