For a lot of us Western Christians (Catholics and Protestants alike), the Eastern Orthodox churches are mystical and mysterious. There is certainly elements of that, particularly later in the book when mysticism really took off. But Christianity in the East was primarily about arguing over the exact nature of Christ, the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, etc. using the expansive and excruciatingly detailed Greek language to make the distinctions those crude Latin-based tongues in the West were so woefully inadequate at doing. Never mind repeated invasions and the eventual destruction of the primary political vessel of Orthodoxy (the posthumously-named Byzantine Empire) during this time from both (further) East and West.
Pelikan spends a good deal of time discussing the Nestorians and Jacobite/Monophysite churches, heretical but enduring sects of Christianity with their own theological and philosophical constructs. Thanks to his even-handed treatment, one can understand why these churches were moderately successful, hanging out at the fringes of empire (and ultimately the first absorbed by a nascent Islam). That's not an easy task, considering almost all we know about these groups comes from their enemies' citations of their own work to be used against them.
Ultimately, the Slavs and Russians are poised at the end of this volume to inherit the theological mantle of the Byzantines. They don't get a whole lot of exposure in this book, even though the last 250 years of the coverage period are post-Byzantine, but Pelikan promises us a return to the East in the fifth and final volume of the series, something I'll probably tackle in 2017!
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