Introduction

The goal of this book is to do ethics out of the Orthodox tradition within a North American context. Indeed, Orthodoxy has contributed very little to the distinct enterprise of religious ethics. Stanley S. Harakas’s systematic treatments of Orthodox ethics, Toward Transfigured Life: The Theoria of Eastern Orthodox Ethics (1983), stands as the sole book of its kind written in North America by an Orthodox theologian. Other books and articles by Orthodox authors about historic Christian moral concerns and contemporary ethical issues are notably few.¹ Their existence, however, ought not to be overlooked, and the prospect is that within a