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Book Review

KEVIN MORRIS
Three Wise Men fom the East: the Cappadocian Fathers and the Strugle for Orthodoxy.
Patrick Whitworth. Sacristy Press, 2015, 254pp.
IN 2015 I took a parish pilgrimage to
Turkey in which we visited
Cappadocia and then the seven
churches of Revelation. It is country
where one walks in the footsteps of
great saints: the Blessed Virgin Mary,
St John, St Peter, St Paul, St Philip, St
Thecla, St Timothy and St Silas. The
New Testament and early Christian
tradition guides the pilgrim well in
understanding the depth and
liveliness of the faith of those early
Christians and provides a richly
rewarding challenge to our own
discipleship.
It is also the country of the
great Councils: Nicaea,
Constantinople, Ephesus and
Chalcedon; and home to the 4th
century Cappadocian theologians
who were to have such an influence
on the development of Christian
doctrine. This is where this pilgrim
leader needed some help, at the very
least a refresher course on the
theological writings of Basil of Caesarea (’the Great’), his brother Gregory of
Nyssa, his close friend Gregory of Nazianzus, and the life of Basil’s sister
Macrina. I turned to Patrick Whitworth’s book and found the help I needed.
Whitworth’s book is comprehensive and clearly written. He does not
present the Cappadocian Fathers as merely controversial ecclesiastical
politicians or ciphers for doctrinal orthodoxy, but as strong personalities

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