Basilio Petrà is a Roman Catholic priest born in 1946 to Greek parents from Rhodes. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Florence and a doctorate in theology from the Lateran University of Rome. The author of more than twenty books (in Italian) on patristic and modern theology, he is Professor of Moral Theology and of the Ethics of Marriage at the Theological School of Central Italy (Florence) and Visiting Professor of Greek Patristic Moral Theology at the Lateran University.

An introduction to the work of the Greek theologian and philosopher Christos Yannaras, exploring the development of his contribution to Greek Orthodox thought.

Introduction
I. The discovery of Russian Orthodoxy: the West as a problem
1. From orthodox pietism to the discovery of personalism and Russian Orthodoxy
2. Dostoevsky's criticism of the West and the mission of Orthodoxy
II. The encounter with Heidegger and the ontological hermeneutic of the West.
1. Heidegger and the nihilistic outcome of Western metaphysics. The way beyond nihilism; Eastern apophaticism
2. Yannaras's 'Conversion to Ontology' and the discovery of the ontological difference with the West. The rediscovery of 'Greek metaphysics' and its connection with apophaticism.
3. Eastern apophaticism and Orthodox apologetics. The gnoseological topicality of apophaticism and its iconological character.
III. From the personalist ontology of the Fathers to a critical ontology. Between theology and philosophy
1. Person and Eros: A theological essay in post-Heideggarian ontology
2. A hermeneutic interval
3. The philosophical elaboration of a 'Critical Ontology.' The possibility of an 'apophatic rationalism.' The social fruitfulness of apophaticism
4. Propositions for a Critical Ontology. A 'revisionist empiricism'
IV. The Development of reflection on Critical Ontology.
1. From Person and Eros to What Can be Said and what Cannot be Said. The second 'Fundamental Stage' in Yannaras's thought.
2. Relational Ontology
V. Ontology and Salvation
1. Introductory considerations
2. 'Religionisation'; religion and the ontological distortion of Christianity
3. Against Religion. Natural religion, the religious transformation of Christianity, and the reshaping of the Church.
Epilogue
Christos Yannaras
The Communal Verification of Knowledge
1. The genesis of critical thought
2. Truth as mode
3. Correct thinking (orthos dianoeisthai) through correctly sharing in common (orthos koinonein)
4. A divisive empiricism
5. Symbol
6. Apophaticism
7. The historical eclipse of apophaticism
8. The incarnation of apophaticism in a culture
9. The counterfeiting of the ancient Greek enterprise
10. Gnoseology differentiates cultures
Bibliography
Index