Icon of the Kingdom of God: An Orthodox Ecclesiology. By RaduBordeianu. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2023. Pp. vii, 364. $34.95.

Radu Bordeianu is an Orthodox priest-theologian who studied for his first degrees in theology in Romania, and went on to gain his ThM from Duke and finally his PhD from Marquette in 2016. He now serves as professor of theology at Duquesne University where he is also their director of graduate studies in theology. He brings to his task, in this new and important study of Orthodox ecclesiology, a long pastoral experience and an enduring interest in ecumenical thought and in issues of ecclesiological renewal. One of his inspirations is revealed in the title of his first book: Dumitru Staniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology (T&T Clark, 2011); and something of the author's close knowledge of Orthodox reactions to Vatican II theology can be discerned in the present volume's title, which partly echoes the idea popularised by the late Cardinal Dulles with his study of ‘Models of the Church’. There, five alternating models were presented (Church as Institution, Community, Sacrament, Herald, and Servant) to demonstrate their significance in the self-understanding of the Church, where the important point was made that it is to the church's detriment if any single concept so dominates understanding as to exclude the others. Bordeianu takes his own starting point in relation to Orthodox ecclesiology by prioritising the notion of the Kingdom of God and using the deeply rooted Orthodox theological reverence of the icon, so as to conceive how the Christian community can practically represent that eschatological Kingdom in its day-to-day life in history. His title is taken from a poetic utterance of Alexander Schmemann, to the effect that in the Church the community is meant to encounter ‘a world that is purified, transfigured, filled again with divine beauty and meaning – the very icon of the Kingdom of God’. From the outset, the author brings his pastoral realpolitik to bear: the fact that ecclesiologies rooted only in theories and images cannot do justice to the complex and subtle lives of the faithful whose personal experiences are their own road to the Kingdom, and whose Church is no less than the vehicle of salvation. This practical and pastoral rootedness marks the book with a status that makes it a benchmark for all future discussions of Orthodox ecclesiology, and takes the whole debate out of the tedious and sterile arguments that so often bed down Orthodox debates over authoritative hierarchies, precedences, and historical structures. Bordeianu organises the work around eight key themes as chapters: the Kingdom of God, Baptism, Family, Parish, Liturgy, Priesthood, Synodality, and Nationality. His concluding insistences turn around the common baptism that makes all believers core elements of the Church, not simply those who are Orthodox members. His pastoral rootedness brings to the fore the local eucharistic community as the ‘real church’ for all intents and purposes, by which he stresses the parish, not the diocese (though not dismissing the episcopal significance), and he makes an urgent appeal for the Orthodox consideration of Orthodox-Catholic intercommunion, and intercommunion in cases wherever one has mixed marriages of Christians, since the family is the very ecclesiola, the Church in seminal miniature. In relation to synodality the author notes how, in times past, this important principle of governance and clarification of mentality operated at every level from parish to national and international level. Today in the Orthodox world, he notes, synodality has withered on the international level, but increased on the parochial, diocesan, and national levels. He advocates a greater extension of it (especially in an age where lay education has reached such heights and interconnectedness is so extended), and calls for a renewed attempt to reach once again a working principle of international synodality by adopting the pope's ancient role as articulator of the ultimate synodical agreement of the whole Church, though in a way that current Roman Catholic canon law does not yet allow. The final word is the rather sad note (given present geopolitical circumstances) that, in relation to the state, the Orthodox Church is called to be the critic and conscience of the local government, not its collaborator or slave. All in all this is an important and rich study that will repay the attention of theologians and faithful of all ecclesial disciplines, but will be of interest especially to Orthodox who wish for help in considering what church structures they would like to see their children thrive in for the future. It is an important outreach also to Catholic theological interests, and it will surely make a lively discussion text in any serious school that imagines itself to be involved in preparing theologians.