In Memoriam: Fr. George Mastrantonis and Dr. William Rusch
The modest library of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute at HCHC recently received two significant and symbolic gifts. Last year, a generous gift from the James N. and Dorothea Gianoulis Malina Fellowship Fund enabled the Institute to furnish a reading room dedicated to the late Fr. George Mastrantonis. Fr. George was a distinguished and erudite clergyman who hailed from Greece but dedicated his ministry to the United States, as well as a prominent and prolific author on historical, theological, and liturgical matters who founded the publishing company OLOGOS (which stood for Orthodox Lore of the Gospel of our Savior) and edited a popular journal by the same name.
Born in 1906, Fr. Mastrantonis studied theology at the Universities of Athens and Leipzig, completing an MTS at Concordia Seminary. He served as parish priest in several U.S. cities, including New York, NY, Chicago, IL (where he established the Hellenic Foundation in 1952), and St. Louis, MO. However, the book that consolidated his reputation as an ecumenical scholar was Augsburg and Constantinople: The Correspondence between the Tübingen Theologians and Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople on the Augsburg Confession, published by Holy Cross Orthodox Press in 1982 as part of The Archbishop Iakovos Library of Ecclesiastical and Historical Sources, volume 7. To put the publication date in context, the official Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue convened for the first time in Finland in 1981.
Fr. George died in St. Louis in 1988. It was an honor to name the reading room of the Huffington Ecumenical Institute in his name at the request of Mrs. Dorothea Malina.
In the last weeks, another unexpected donation came from the family of the late Dr. William Rusch, a significant and prophetic ecumenical voice in the Lutheran Church, whose personal library was benevolently gifted to the Huffington Ecumenical Institute through the kind efforts of Rev. Dr. Thomas Drobena, a theological student and pastoral successor of Bill Rusch.
Dr Rusch was very active on the national scene in the United States, serving as a member of the national Lutheran-Reformed, Lutheran-Episcopal, and Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogues. Moreover, he helped to establish the Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue in the United States, which has played an important role in supporting the work of the International Lutheran-Orthodox Joint Commission on Theological Dialogue. He was also a long-time and close friend of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. The Lutheran World Federation described Bill as a man who “opened many doors” through his courageous commitment to Christian unity, noting that for him “dialogue was not only doctrinal, but also existential.”
Born in 1937, Rusch earned his doctorate in historical theology from Oxford and taught at Fordham University (New York), Lutheran Theological Seminary (Philadelphia), New York Theological Seminary, Tantur Ecumenical Institute (Jerusalem), and the Angelicum (Rome), in addition to serving as adjunct professor of Lutheran Studies at Yale Divinity School. Upon his death earlier this year, affectionate tributes came from, among many others, the World Council of Churches and the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity. Indeed, Bill served as a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches Faith and Order Commission, as well as director of the National Council of Churches Commission on Faith and Order and an inspiration for a number of other ecumenical organizations.
He authored or edited twenty-six books, including The Trinitarian Controversy (Fortress Press, 1980), Ecumenism: A Movement Toward Church Unity (Fortress, 1985), The Witness of Bartholomew I: Ecumenical Patriarch (Eerdmans, 2013), and Toward a Common Future: Ecumenical Reception and a New Consensus (Wipf and Stock, 2020).
Just six months ago (November 11–14, 2024), the planning committee of the international Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue was invited to Boston by the Huffington Ecumenical Institute at HCHC for a discussion on synodality and primacy in the church in preparation for their 19th plenary session scheduled for Cyprus in May 2025. Archbishop Elpidophoros of America—who previously served as Orthodox co-secretary of this historic dialogue—hosted the concluding dinner in honor of the esteemed delegates, headed by their respective co-chairs, Metropolitan Kyrillos of Krini (Ecumenical Patriarchate) and Bishop Dr. Johann Schneider (Germany).
The blessed coincidence and ecumenical connection of these two magnanimous gifts to the Huffington Ecumenical Institute constitute a unique and symbolic tribute to two clergymen, whose names, ministries, and writings will profoundly enhance and permanently grace our library and reading room.
Fr. John Chryssavgis, Executive Director, Huffington Ecumenical Institute at HCHC.