From his book “The Person in the Orthodox Tradition,” pages 35 to 36
"[T]heology, as Fr. John Romanides says, resembles the positive sciences, physics and mathematics. In physics we have experiment and theory. In mathematics we have action and the confirmation of action. The same is true in Orthodox Theology. Every modern science has observation and experiment. In Orthodox Theology there is experiment [The Sacramental and Ascetical Life as prescribed by one’s Spiritual Father Confessor]. We accept the experience of the saints and we struggle to make a personal experiment in our life, to apply and confirm that experience. And if we use the appropriate method and appropriate path, and of course if God sends His grace, then we too can be led to the vision of God and to acquire a personal knowledge of God. In the teaching of St. Maximus the Confessor experiment is called ‘praxis’ [πράξης] and the vision of God is called ‘theoria’ [θεωρία]. And this Saint claims that ‘praxis’ and ‘theoria’ coexist. Therefore he writes epigrammatically: “Praxis is theoria made manifest in terms of action, and theoria is divinely initiated praxis”13. Thus Orthodox Theology is not at all connected with metaphysics, but with medicine and the natural sciences. We must disconnect Orthodox Theology from Western Theology, which has influenced us in an unfortunate way. Western Theology, which has identified itself with metaphysics, has brought innumerable evils upon the western world. This is not the time to go into that.
So the Orthodox Theologian is a modern man, because he deals with the so-called existential problems which are on people’s minds, but chiefly because he used the most modern method, that of observation and action in order to attain the knowledge of God. And when he reaches and attains the knowledge of God, then he [or she] feels and inner fullness and he [or she] experiences God as love and as lover who moves and is moved.
13 PG 90, 1344 and Philokalia ET vol. 2, p 257, 89
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