I would like to thank the members of my thesis committee for the guidance and support they have shown over the past year: Fr. Richard Schenk, OP, coordinator, from the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology; Professor James Skedros, second reader, from the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute; D. Brent Collette, Third Reader, from the Berkeley, California, Institute of Religion of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In the midst of his own busy schedule, which keeps him in Germany for most of the year, Fr. Schenk has always believed in this project and has given generously of his time and attention.

Professor Skedros's fall 1997 class, "Orthodox Spirituality," was enormously helpful as I had no real background in either the Greek Fathers of the Church or current Orthodox theology. My term paper for that class provided the basis for chapter 2 of this thesis.

I am indebted to D. Brent Collette for his gracious hospitality and for allowing me to take courses at the Berkeley, California, Institute of Religion of the Church of Jesus Christ for the past two years.

Finally, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Dennis Murdock, director of the Eugene, Oregon, Institute of Religion of the Church of Jesus Christ. In the spring of 1995, when I first inquired about the possibility of a "nonmember" taking Institute classes, he welcomed and encouraged me in my study of Mormonism.