Te new testament ecclesiology of St. Teophanes the Recluse

Tis article proposes and considers the hypothesis that, in his commentaries on the epistles, St. Teophanes the Recluse was critiquing not only contemporary Western biblical scholarship, but also the main ecclesiological ideas of Aleksey Khomyakov. Tese include stressing the pneumatological dimension at the expense of the christological; the lack of a clear definition of conciliarity, which led to a confusion of the definitions of unity and catholicity in the church; and the conception of the importance of the community over the hierarchy. Tough St. Teophanes nowhere mentions Khomyakov by name, his comments clearly provide answers to all of the questions raised by Khomyakov. Tis includes his clear, Christological foundation of ecclesiology, and his idea of a catholicity of the Church based on Eucharistic unity, and his teaching that the hierarchy derives directly from Christ. Terefore, the clearly alternative viewpoints formulated by the hierarch, as well as the high probability of the fact that St. Teophanes was familiar with the works of Khomyakov, leads us to conclude in favor of the proposed hypothesis