Cosmos, Crisis & Christ: Essays of Wendy Robinson

Wendy Robinson’s work was primarily interpersonal and in retreat talks or lectures where she could engage with her audience directly; many of the essays here are transcriptions of those talks. Even ten years after her death, her theology and her compassion are remembered with great fondness and gratitude, and continue to resonate both with those who knew her and those who encounter her writing for the first time.

Wendy Robinson (1934–2013) was a trained psychotherapist who became a member of the Russian Orthodox Church in England in 1980. To be able to combine these two vocations was, for her, to discover herself. She practised psychotherapy both with individual clients and, increasingly, with religious communities, both Catholic and Anglican, giving retreats and one-to-one counselling, and built up a strong and lasting connection with the Sisters of the Love of God in Oxford. She reflected on her dual vocation in lectures and articles, a selection of which are published here.

Andrew Louth, an archpriest of the Orthodox Church, is professor emeritus of Patristic and Byzantine Studies at Durham University. Among his publications are Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology, Greek East and Latin West: the Church AD 681–1071, Maximus the Confessor, and The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition.