Cosmic Liturgy by Fr. Hans Urs Von Balthasar

He worked in Basel as a student chaplain. He joined the Jesuits in 1929, and was ordained in 1936. He studied in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich, gaining a doctorate in German literature. He is considered one of the most important theologians of the 20th century.īorn in Lucerne, Switzerland on 12 August 1905, he attended Stella Matutina (Jesuit school) in Feldkirch, Austria. Hans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss theologian and priest who was nominated to be a cardinal of the Catholic Church. Here the history of theology has become itself a way of theological reflection. It is based on an intelligent and careful reading of Maximus's own writings. This book presents a powerful, attractive, religiously compelling portrait of the thought of a major Christian theologian who might, for this book, have remained only an obscure name in the handbooks of patrology. This is the first English translation of the latest edition of this acclaimed work.

Subsequent editions included new material from decades of research. This masterpiece on Maximus broke new ground at that time. Von Balthasar was an authority on the Church Fathers-Irenaeus, Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius Ponticus, Augustine, and above all, Maximus the Confessor. Maximus the Confessor, saint and martyr, is the theologian of synthesis: of Rome and Byzantium, of Eastern and Western theology, of antiquity and the Middle Ages, re-excavating the great treasures of Christian tradition, which at that time had been buried by imperial and ecclesial censure.

Cosmic Liturgy by Fr. Hans Urs Von Balthasar