On Each One’s Earth as It Is in Heaven: Reconciling the Spiritual and Psychological Languages About Our Inner Life

In this groundbreaking volume, Fr. Vasileios Thermos—a practicing psychiatrist and an Orthodox priest—addresses the profound "estrangement" between the vocabularies of theology and psychology. For too long, these two fields have operated in isolation, leaving many believers caught in a painful deadlock: "Is my struggle a sin to be confessed, or a psychological disorder to be treated?".

A Bridge Between Two Worlds

This book is not merely an academic study; it is a vital mapping of the human person in all their "unimaginable complexity". Fr. Vasileios explores how the spiritual life and the psychic life are not independent tracks, but a unified human reality. By bringing neptic patristic terms (like nous, logismoi, and passions) into dialogue with modern clinical concepts (like trauma, depression, and personality disorders), he offers a path toward true inner unity.

Key Insights for Clergy and Laypeople:

• Sins Fueled by Mental Disorders: Understanding how conditions like anxiety, depression, ADHD, and OCD can "contaminate" thoughts and behaviors, often leading to a cycle of guilt in confession that medicine or therapy could help alleviate.
• Borderline Personality & Postmodernity: A deep dive into why borderline pathology has become the "disorder of our times" and how it manifests in the pastoral setting through volatile images of God and unstable spiritual commitments.
• The Tension Between Nature and Will: Clarifying St. Maximus the Confessor’s distinction between the "corruption of nature" and the "corruption of prohairesis" (will) to help discern between moral failings and psychological energy disturbances.
• Clergy and Therapist Cooperation: A call for mutual awareness to remove the biases and "blind spots" on both sides, ensuring that those in suffering receive integrated care for both soul and psyche.

The Eschatological Vision

Ultimately, Fr. Vasileios reminds us that our psychological struggles are temporary. In the Kingdom of Heaven, "ontology will eventually absorb psychology". The goal of this book is to help us labor through our current imperfections toward that final transfiguration where our personal identity is fully fulfilled in Christ.

Rev. Vasileios Thermos, M.D., Ph.D., was born in 1957 at Lefkada, Greece. He studied at the Medical School of Athens University and after he graduated he studied at the Theological School of the same University. He was specialized in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry which he practiced until recently in Athens; he retired in 2024. In 1986 and 1987 he was ordained and served at the diocese of Viotia. He has been engaged into training programs for clergy in Greece, Cyprus, USA. In 1996–97 he was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Divinity School; he took classes also in Harvard School of Arts and Humanities, Boston College, Boston University, Andover Newton Theological School. In 1997 he received his PhD in Pastoral Psychology from the Theological School of Athens University. In 2014 he worked for 3 months as a Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute of Medical Humanities of the Medical School of Texas University on a project about homosexuality and contemporary gender theories. He has also conducted a research on clergy health and burnout. He has written numerous books and articles in Greek; some of them have been translated into English, French, Russian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Spanish, Italian, German, Finnish, Ukrainian. He is the editor of a journal in Greek (Psyches dromoi: Ways of the Soul), published every 6 months, on the relationships between theology/religion and psychiatry/psychology (first issue in May 2011). In 2004 a master thesis on his total work appeared by Peter Kazaku at the Theological School of Balamand University, Lebanon. This thesis was updated and enriched, thus forming the book «Orthodoxy and Psychoanalysis: Dirge or Polychronion to the Centuries-old Tradition?», which was published in 2013 by Peter Lang publications in the series ‘European University Studies’, volume 938. Also in 2020 another master thesis appeared in the School of Theology of the University of Vienna, by Gabriella Moutsatsos: Ansätze der Οrthodoxen Pastoralpsychologie der Gegenwart: Simeon Kragiopoulos und Vasileios Thermos. During 2001–2013 he was a Visiting Professor of Pastoral Psychology and Psychology of Religion in the Theological Academy of the Orthodox Church of Albania. From 2013 until 2024 he taught Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Psychology in the University Ecclesiastical Academy of Athens; he is now retired. In 2017–18 his essay The Paradox of Mental Health Care and Spirituality: The Culture of Extreme Individualism as a Mediator was awarded the prize on the “Culture, Care, and Spirituality” contest by the Jean-Marc Fischer Foundation in Switzerland. He has been a member of scientific committees organizing conferences on the relationship between theology and psychiatry/psychology. He has also given thousands of lectures to seminars, parents groups, clergy assemblies, camps, high schools, radio and TV etc. His areas of interest are: Relationship between psychological sciences and religion; Psychology of religious beliefs and experiences; Dialogue between psychoanalysis and religion; Psychology of clergy and of the ecclesiastical organization; Psychology of culture; Religious development of child and adolescent; Language, psychology, and religion; Post-modernity and religion; Homosexuality and gender identity. With his wife Asteroula (who is an artist for icons and metal crafts) have two daughters, two grand-sons, and one grand-daughter. Other books in English: - Thirst for Love and Truth: Encounters of Orthodox Theology and Psychological Science. Montreal: Alexander press, 2010. - The Forgotten Mystery: The Ecclesial Consequences of Holy Chrismation. Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2016. - Psychology in the Service of the Church: Theology and Psychology in Cooperation. Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2017. - Sexual orientation and Gender identity: Answers …and People. Athens: En Plo, 2019. - Nocturnal Flights to Truth (poems with collages). Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2022. - The Dramatic Journey of Faith: Orthodox Religious Conversion in America. Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press 2024. He has also edited the collective volumes: - with Stephen Muse, Words into Spirit: Pastoral Perspectives on Confession, St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press, 2019. - with Evdoxia Delli, Self and Psyche as a Surprise: Orthodox Theology and Psychoanalysis in Dialogue, Alhambra, CA: Sebastian Press, 2021. - with Evdoxia Delli, Human Meaning at the Borders of Orthodox Theology and Psychoanalysis, Volos: Metropolis of Demetrias Press, 2024.