Ratzinger’s Liturgical Theology
Worship as the theological form in which revelation, Christology, ecclesiology, and Christian existence converge.
Orthodox Priest · Canon Lawyer · Theologian
Faith received.
Tradition embodied.
My scholarship explores how the Church receives, embodies, and transmits the revelation of Jesus Christ through Scripture, liturgy, ecclesial communion, and the living tradition of the Church.
Visiting Scholar · Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies
“The canons are the window. The Church is the view.”
01 · About
A theological vocation shaped by worship, law, and communion.
Fr. Milan S. Sturgis is an Orthodox priest of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, a canon lawyer, and a theologian whose principal scholarly specialization is Joseph Ratzinger’s liturgical theology.
His work examines how revelation is received and embodied in Scripture, worship, doctrine, canonical order, and ecclesial communion. Bringing Ratzinger and the Communio tradition into sustained conversation with the Fathers and the Byzantine theological inheritance, he seeks to recover the common patrimony of the Christian East and West without reducing their distinct theological grammars.
He currently serves as a Visiting Scholar at the Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies. His academic work also includes guest lectures, invited presentations, and collaborative research in systematic theology, liturgy, canon law, and Orthodox–Catholic relations.
Current AppointmentVisiting Scholar
Dumbarton Oaks Center
for Byzantine Studies
Academic ExperienceGuest Lecturer
The Catholic University of America
Christendom College
Ecclesial HomeOrthodox Priest
Greek Orthodox Archdiocese
of America
Formation St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary · Brown University · U.S. Naval War College · University of Belgrade
02 · Scholarship
One theological vision
How does the Church receive, embody, and transmit the revelation of Jesus Christ?
Rather than treating theology as a collection of isolated disciplines, this research program begins from the unity of revelation and follows its ecclesial reception through Scripture, liturgy, doctrine, canonical order, and communion. The result is not a catalogue of topics, but an integrated theological inquiry governed by the life of the Church.
Communio Theology
The Church understood through participation, relation, Eucharistic communion, and Trinitarian form.
Scripture, Liturgy & Sacra Doctrina
The recovery of theology as wisdom rooted in revelation, ordered toward worship, and fulfilled in beatitude.
Canon Law & Ecclesiology
The living canonical tradition as an expression of the Church’s identity rather than an autonomous juridical system.
Orthodox–Catholic Relations
The common inheritance of the undivided Church as the proper horizon for dialogue, reception, and communion.
Conscience & Moral Formation
Conscience as response to truth, conversion, and ecclesial formation amid the pressures of technological mediation.
Current Articles
Research in development
Four related studies extend the governing research question into concrete theological problems without surrendering the unity of the larger vision.
A Shared Sacra Doctrina
Joseph Ratzinger’s retrieval of Aquinas beyond neo-scholasticism through Scripture, metaphysics, liturgy, and beatitude.
Conscience and Conversion
Ratzinger’s theology of conscience as an encounter with truth that summons the person to conversion rather than self-assertion.
Tradition Within Communion
Tradition as the Church’s living reception of the gift entrusted to her in Christ, tested through questions of authority and ecclesial rupture.
The Living Canonical Tradition
Canon law, oikonomia, and dispensatio understood as ecclesiology in practice and ordered toward the healing of communion.
03 · Publications
Selected scholarship
Peer-reviewed articles, book reviews, and works in progress situated at the intersection of systematic theology, liturgy, ecclesiology, and the living canonical tradition.
01
Book Review
Tracey Rowland, Introducing the Communio Theology
Accepted by Nova et Vetera
02
Peer-Reviewed Article
A Shared Sacra Doctrina: Ratzinger’s Retrieval of Aquinas Beyond Neo-Scholasticism
Submitted for publication
03
Article in Development
Tradition Within Communion: Reception, Authority, and the Living Subject of Tradition
In revision
04
Article in Development
Conscience and Conversion: Joseph Ratzinger on Truth, Freedom, and Moral Formation
In preparation
Selected publication venues
Request a complete curriculum vitae →
Additional articles and reviews have appeared in The Thomist, Logos, Pro Ecclesia, St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly, and New Blackfriars.
04 · Current Book Project
The East
Within the West
Joseph Ratzinger and the Recovery of the Common Inheritance
A book-length work in systematic theology exploring how Ratzinger’s theological vision recovers the shared patrimony of the undivided Church through Scripture, the Fathers, liturgy, ontology, pneumatology, and ecclesiology.
Chapters written to date
- 01Introduction: The Methodological Impasse
- 02The Portal: St. Bonaventure and the Western Assimilation of Pseudo-Dionysius
- 03Relational Ontology: Overcoming the Grammar of Substance
- 04Essence and Energies
- 05The Spirit and the Charge of Christendom
- 06Cosmic Liturgy and Apophatic Ecclesiology
- 07Reconciling Primacy and Synodality
05 · Appointments & Lectures
Teaching and public scholarship
Fr. Milan’s academic work joins sustained research with invited teaching, conference presentations, seminars, and public theological writing.
Current AppointmentVisiting Scholar · Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies
Guest LecturesThe Catholic University of America · Christendom College
Conference EngagementBoston College · Boston University
ForthcomingRatzinger Centenary Conference · Rome · March 2027
06 · Contact
Academic correspondence
and speaking inquiries
For scholarly correspondence, invited lectures, conference participation, or publication inquiries.
milan@frmilansturgis.com