Metropolitan Hierotheos’ works always center around two main points: the doctrine of the human person discussed in terms of his illness and cure, and the doctrine of the Church, discussed in terms of a spiritual hospital; so the recent translation of this work is entirely logical. The Mind of the Orthodox Church (first published in 1990) consists of nine lectures delivered to catechists in Athens, and serves as a sort of informal Orthodox dogmatic theology and catechism in itself. Included, Besides one of the most extensive discussions of ecclesiology in recent Orthodox literature, are sections on the Orthodox definition of orthodoxy, the Eucharist, the Christological and Trinitarian content of ’’the Orthodox Mind,’’ Orthodox praxis -- lay and monastic -- and a concluding exposition of the ’’Synodikon,’’ the confession of the faith that includes the concluding proclamation of the Seventh Ecumenical Council along with the definitions of the hesychastic Councils of the fourteenth-century, vindicating the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas.
