This comprehensive reader offers a collection of primary texts with ample introductory essays and helpful explanatory notes. Primary texts range from the letter of Ignatius to the Smyrnians (ca. 107–110 c.e.) to the lyrics of a popular Russian nationalist hymn, penned in 2006 by Zhanna Bichevskaya. Along the way, historical documents are introduced and presented chronologically, with some mending and modification for thematic purposes. Geffert and Stavrou have very intentionally taken an interdisciplinary approach which facilitates a dialogue between historical realities and modern academic concerns.

This dialogue allows for a fascinating compilation of sources, from the decrees and synods of Christian councils, to anthropological accounts of Russian peasant religion. The breadth of this collection is amplified by an online resource facilitated by Yale University Press, which offers over 1,300 pages of additional primary sources (the book itself is helpful in directing students and teachers to specific sections of this digital supplement).

Particularly commendable are the accounts of the long and complicated schism between the Greek and Latin churches; Geffert and Stavrou paint a masterful picture of the ambiguities of the long process of this alienation, and the primary sources they have chosen represent the complex and woeful ironies of such a historical conundrum well. In addition, their treatment of the state of the Greek Church under Ottoman rule and the rise of the Greek independence movement provides an “eastern” counterbalance to many standard accounts of the shaping of modern Europe.

Though historians specializing in a given period may find a detail to quibble with here or there, Eastern Orthodox Christianity is a great step forward. It will serve well in undergraduate courses, introducing this audience to the historical significance of the Eastern Orthodox Church, a church whose own contemporary course can appear both ancient and modern.