11 Facts About Vladimir Lossky

Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky was a Russian Orthodox theologian exiled in Paris.

Vladimir Lossky emphasized theosis as the main principle of Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky was born on 8 June 1903 in Gottingen, Germany.

Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky enrolled as a student at the faculty of Arts at Petrograd University in 1919, and, in the spring of 1922, was profoundly struck when he witnessed the trial which led to the execution of Metropolitan Benjamin of St Petersburg by the Soviets.

In November 1922, Lossky was expelled from Soviet Russia with his entire family.

Vladimir Lossky served as the first dean of the St Dionysius Institute in Paris.

Vladimir Lossky taught dogmatic theology and ecclesiastical history in this institute until 1953, and, from 1953 to 1958, in the diocese of the patriarchate of Moscow, "rue Petel" in Paris.

Vladimir Lossky was a member of the Brotherhood Saint Photius and the ecumenical Fellowship of Saint Alban and Saint Sergius.

Vladimir Lossky died of a heart attack on 7 February 1958 in Paris.

In both works Vladimir Lossky stresses the differences between Christian thinkers such as Pseudo-Dionysius and such thinkers as Plotinus and the Neoplatonists, asserting that Christianity and Neoplatonism, though they share common culture and concepts, have very different understandings of God and ontology.

Vladimir Lossky argued in The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church that the technical terms of the Trinity doctrine are rooted in Hebrew hermeneutics, Greek Platonic philosophy and Neoplatonic philosophy.