The V. Rev. Archimandrite Maximos Constas is Professor of Patristics and Orthodox Spirituality and Director of the Pappas Patristic Institute at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, in Brookline, Mass. He holds a PhD in Patristics and Historical Theology from the Catholic University of America, in Washington, D.C. For many years he was a professor of theology at Harvard Divinity School, after which he became a monk at the Monastery of Simonopetra (Mt. Athos, Greece).

Fr Maximos has twice held fellowships at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University’s Center for Byzantine Studies in Washington, DC (1992-1993, 2000-2002); he was the Inaugural James Rubin Visiting Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies at Hebrew University, Jerusalem (1991-1992), and a Visiting Professor of Patristics and Byzantine Literature and Consultant to the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae at UCLA, Irvine (2001). In 2003, he was invited to teach Orthodox Theology at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, and in 2016 served as a Visiting Professor of Byzantine Literature at Harvard University’s Department of the Classics. He is a member of numerous international theological societies, and serves on multiple editorial boards, including Analogia: A Journal of Theological Dialogue; and Harvard University’s prestigious Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series. Most recently, he served as interim Dean of Holy Cross (2019-2021).

His publications include St Maximos the Confessor, On Difficulties in Sacred Scripture: The Responses to Thalassios (2018), which followed his edition and translation of St Maximos the Confessor, On Difficulties in the Church Fathers: The Ambigua to Thomas and the Ambigua to John, 2 vols. (2014). He is the author of The Art of Seeing: Paradox and Perception in Orthodox Iconography (2014); Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity (2003); St John Chrysostom and the Jesus Prayer (2020); as well as numerous scholarly articles, the most recent of which are "Dionysius the Areopagite and the New Testament" and "Maximus the Confessor and the Reception of Dionysius the Areopagite," both in the Oxford Handbook of Dionysius the Areopagite (2022); "Maximos the Confessor and the Doctrine of Deification" in the Oxford Handbook of Deification; "Saints and Elders of Mount Athos" in the Routledge Handbook of Mt Athos; and "Theology of the Icon" (all forthcoming in 2023). Fr Maximos has also translated four volumes of the writings of the contemporary Athonite Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra: The Church at Prayer; The Way of the Spirit; Psalms and the Life of Faith; and The Mystical Marriage. At press is a critical edition and English translation of the tenth-century Life of the Theotokos by John Geometres, which will be published by Harvard University Press in the spring of 2023. A full list of his publications is available here. Fr Maximos's work focuses on the patristic and Byzantine theological tradition, the patristic interpretation of Scripture, the Philokalia and Orthodox spirituality, and the theological study of Byzantine art, icons and iconography.

Fr Maximos is a Visiting Professor at St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary for the Fall Semester 2022, where he is teaching a course on the Philokalia. He is currently writing a book on the Philokalia set against the background of the Orthodox Church's encounter with the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century.