The encounter between the Orthodox Church and theology with Modernity has been asymmetrical. While European Western society experienced successive radical changes in its history and culture from the 15th to the 19th century, Greek-speaking Orthodoxy under Ottoman rule continued to live in the static and inert framework of pre-modernity.

Orthodoxy and the current of the Greek Enlightenment could not engage in mutual dialogue. They represented two completely different worlds with different criteria, values, prerequisites, and aims. The ideological framework of the Enlightenment and the explosion of scientific knowledge came from Europe and encountered a subjugated and enclosed pre-modern society, which expressed either uncritical acceptance of the new cultural achievements or confusion and fear or outright rejection of them.

Could this conflict have been avoided if there had been a way of osmosis, dialogue, and interaction between the various spiritual trends and ideological directions of the New Hellenism? The studies and essays that comprise this work primarily aim for a fruitful and creative dialogue between Orthodox theology and Modernity and the contemporary world and culture.