This detailed study of Anglican-Orthodox relations in the early years of the ecumenical movement not only traces their development but also analyses the motives which impelled each side to seek closer relations. Anglicans, particularly those of an Anglo-Catholic disposition, were anxious to secure Orthodox recognition of Anglican ordinations, declared null and void by Leo xiii in 1896, in order to reinforce the Anglican claim to continuity with the early Church. Many Orthodox found themselves after the First World War in radically changed and sometimes parlous circumstances, and in need of friends. The Ecumenical Patriarchate was threatened with expulsion from the new Turkish Republic, the Russian Orthodox Church was enduring the worst-ever persecution of Christians, while in Palestine the Patriarchate of Jerusalem found itself under the Christian rule of the British mandatory administration. As heirs of the East Roman Empire's symphony of Church and State, the Orthodox assumed that the Church of England's views carried great weight with the British government, and so wished for good relations with an influential advocate. But these factors were not powerful enough to overcome the theological difficulties which became increasingly evident as contacts multiplied and official discussions took place. There was some apparent progress: the Ecumenical Patriarchate, hoping for British support for its continuance in Turkey, in 1922 recognised Anglican ordinations, and its example was followed by other autocephalous Churches. But while a few Orthodox were enthusiastically committed to the pursuit of Christian unity, many others were concerned to defend Christian truth as, in their view, the Orthodox Church uniquely preserved it, and were increasingly repelled by the dominantly Protestant character of the developing ecumenical movement. Evangelical Anglicans, on the other hand, were no less concerned to defend the reformation heritage of the Church of England. Anglicans more sympathetic to Orthodoxy nevertheless underestimated the strength of the Orthodox conviction that it alone is the one true Church. As the dialogue between Anglicans and Orthodox developed in a variety of contexts, official and informal, the matters on which they disagreed became clearer. At the same time Orthodox and Anglicans disagreed among themselves as well as between each other. This illuminating study of the complex dynamics of inter- and intra-church relations is of contemporary relevance as well as of historical interest. Members of the International Commission for the Anglican-Orthodox Theological Dialogue who have not yet read it should certainly do so, though they will not be encouraged by Geffert's final assessment, at the end of a brief review of their relations since 1945, that even unified Orthodox and Anglican Churches would be unlikely to agree on fundamental theological issues, while in their present internally contentious state, unity between them is out of the question.