Critical Text
Popular Patristics Series
The Fathers, East and West · est. 1977 · 65 numbered volumes (1977– ), plus a Longer Works sub-series
St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press’s series of accessible translations of the Church Fathers, running since 1977 and now the most widely used English introduction to patristic writing. Where the Victorian libraries concentrated on the Latin West and the pre-Nicene church, the Popular Patristics Series leans East — Chrysostom, the Cappadocians, Ephrem the Syrian, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory Palamas — and many of its texts appear here in English for the first time. Small, inexpensive, and freshly translated, the volumes are meant for readers rather than specialists. It was edited for decades by John Behr and, since 2020, by Bogdan Bucur; a handful of the longest texts appear in a companion “Longer Works” sub-series. Several early volumes were later re-translated and renumbered — the original PPS 2, 20, and 22 are now PPS 57, 55, and 54 — and their vacated numbers reused for new titles.
In this series
68 volumes- 1On the Priesthood
- 2Sermons from the Life of St John Chrysostom
- 3Sermons on the Life of Christ
- 4Behold the Thief with the Eyes of Faith
- 5Verse Homilies on Cain and Abel
- 6On the Holy Icons
- 7On Marriage and Family Life
- 8On the Divine Liturgy
- 9On Wealth and Poverty2nd ed.
- 10Hymns on Paradise
- 11On Ascetical Life
- 12On the Soul and Resurrection
- 13On the Unity of Christ
- 14On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, Volume 1
- 15On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, Volume 2
- 16On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, Volume 3
- 17On the Apostolic Preaching
- 18On the Dormition of Mary: Early Patristic Homilies
- 19On the Mother of God
- 20Christological Letters
- 21On God and Man: The Theological Poetry of St Gregory of Nazianzus
- 22Four Hundred Chapters on Love
- 23On God and Christ: The Five Theological Orations and Two Letters to Cledonius
- 24Three Treatises on the Divine Images
- 25On the Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ
- 26Letters from the Desert
- 27Four Desert Fathers
- 28Saint Macarius the Spiritbearer: Coptic Texts Relating to Saint Macarius the Great
- 29On the Lord's Prayer
- 30On the Human Condition
- 31The Cult of the Saints
- 32On the Church: Select Treatises
- 33On the Church: Select Letters
- 34The Book of Pastoral Rule
- 35Wider Than Heaven: Eighth-Century Homilies on the Mother of God
- 36Festal Orations
- 37Counsels on the Spiritual Life
- 38On Social Justice
- 39Harp of Glory: An African Akathist
- 40Divine Eros: Hymns of St Symeon the New Theologian
- 41On the Two Ways: Life or Death, Light or Darkness
- 42On the Holy Spirit
- 43Works on the Spirit
- 44On the Incarnation
- 45Treasure-House of Mysteries: Explorations of the Sacred Text through Poetry in the Syriac Tradition
- 46Poems on Scripture
- 47On Christian Doctrine and Practice
- 48Light on the Mountain: Greek Patristic and Byzantine Homilies on the Transfiguration of the Lord
- 49The Letters
- 50On Fasting and Feasts
- 51On Christian Ethics
- 52Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical Sayings of the Desert Fathers
- 53Two Hundred Chapters on Theology
- 54On the Apostolic Tradition2nd ed.
- 55On Pascha2nd ed.
- 56Letters to Saint Olympia
- 57Lectures on the Christian Sacraments
- 58The Testament of the Lord: Worship and Discipline in the Early Church
- 59On the Ecclesiastical Mystagogy
- 60Catechetical Discourse: A Handbook for Catechists
- 61Hymns of Repentance
- 62On the Orthodox Faith: Volume 3 of the Fount of Knowledge
- 63Headings on Spiritual Knowledge: The Second Part, Chapters 1-3
- 64On Death and Eternal Life
- 65The Prayers of Saint Sarapion
- LW 1The Triads
- LW 2Hymns of Divine Eros
- LW 3Fount of Knowledge