Rev. Andrew A. Summerson

Rev. Andrew J. Summerson

Assistant Professor of Greek Patristics

Rev. Andrew Summerson, S.Th.D. is Assistant Professor of Greek Patristics at the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies in the Faculty of Theology. His primary area of research concerns interpreting the major works of Maximus the Confessor. A hinge figure in the Christian tradition, Maximus is both the synthesizer of the Greek patristic period and an architect for later Byzantine theology. Summerson’s recent book, Divine Scripture and Human Emotion in Maximus the Confessor, offers a close reading of the Confessor’s second-largest work, Quaestiones ad Thalassium, and shows how Maximus revises Stoic and Platonic-inspired monastic accounts of emotion according to biblical categories. Summerson’s next book project concerns Maximus’s reception of Gregory Nazianzen’s theological legacy, found primarily in the Confessor’s largest work, Ambigua ad Iohannem,

Summerson is currently under contract edit a volume entitled Eastern Catholic Theology in Action (CUA Press). This book brings together an international group of Eastern Catholic, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox scholars to offer a critical introduction to themes in Eastern Catholic theology. He is also the co-editor of the upcoming volume, The Pastoral Theology of the Early Church (CUA Press), a survey of patristic figures and their approaches to pastoral ministry. Summerson is also working currently on a translation Manlio Simonetti’s The Arian Crisis in the Fourth Century. The work will also include essays on developments in scholarship since its original publication. He also publishes in the area of liturgy and Eastern Christian Studies more broadly. Summerson is a member of the North American Patristics Society, the Society of Biblical Literature, The American Academy of Religion, and the Academy of Catholic Theology.