The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity

"A masterful description of the major living traditions of Eastern Christianity. Its 24 chapters, each written by an accomplished scholar in the field, address the dominant ethnic and cultural categories of Eastern Christianity (Arab, Byzantine, etc.) along with their most characteristic features (liturgy, iconography, and hagiography). Each offers a concise, well-organized, and highly readable overview of the tradition in question, along with a representative bibliography ... Highly recommended." (CHOICE)

"Christian emigration, not least from the Middle East, means that there are growing communities of Eastern Christians in the West ... Eastern Christians are now companions to Western; and the latter will learn much about the former from this Blackwell Companion." (Church Times)

"A distinctive addition to the companion series and to its chosen sphere of knowledge." (Reference Reviews)

"A worthwhile collection, and one that should prove useful." (Ecclesiastical History)

"The Blackwell Companion to Eastern Christianity is quite unlike anything else available. It provides a scholarly and authoritative introduction to Eastern Christianity in its myriad variety, covering all the different geographical regions from the Balkans to China and reaching across to the States, and including all jurisdictions. It gives succinct accounts of their history and doctrine, with separate sections on liturgy, iconography and hagiography. Brilliant!"
–Andrew Louth, University of Durham

"This latest addition to the Blackwell Companion series constitutes the most comprehensive, authoritative and elegant account of the Eastern Churches ever published. Its twenty-four chapters, each the work of a specialist, combine full accounts of the history and life of each church with a series of outstanding surveys of their liturgical, iconographical and hagiographical traditions. The surveys of Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox liturgies are a formidable achievement and will be invaluable to students of liturgy Eastern and Western. This work is a definitive synthesis which will stimulate interest in the Eastern Churches at a time when many of them are under threat because of political upheavals. It will also provide a starting point for the further study of their fascinating traditions. Scholarship will long be in the debt of Ken Parry, the editor and organizing mind behind this wonderful collection."
–John Healey, University of Manchester

"A fitting companion volume to Parry's The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, this large enterprise will become an indispensable reference work for the study of Eastern Christianities from Egypt to China to USA. Particularly welcome is its emphasis on varying liturgical, iconographical, architectural, and hagiographical traditions."
–Pauline Allen, Australian Catholic University, Brisbane