Holy Icon

"Young Georges Florovsky from his hometown Odessa, through Paris to New York", acrylic on canvas, by Bishop Maxim, 2022

Young Florovsky is immersed in his thoughts, while on the horizon are discerned his hometown Odessa in flames of a then distant war, Paris and New York. Georges Florovsky was born on August 28, 1893, in Elisavetgrad (the city of Kirovograd in present-day southern Ukraine) and grew up in the cosmopolitan city-port of Odessa. He moved between different European centers-Sofia, Prague, Paris, and Belgrad. In 1925 he became a professor of patristics at the St. Serge Institute of Orthodox Theology in Paris. He spent his working life in Paris (1920–1949) and New York (1949–1979). With Sergei Bulgakov, Vladimir Lossky, Justin Popović, and Dumitru Stăniloae he was one of the more influential Eastern Orthodox Christian theologians of the mid-20th century.