This study seeks to show that Augustine created a Greek-Christian synthesis based on Neo-Platonism, which removes him from the Orthodox mind and the Patristic tradition. The author argues that the theology of Augustine is not the apex of the Patristic tradition, but the beginning of a new one, and is incompatible with the theology of the Orthodox Church, with the difference between the two accounting in part for the separation of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism.

Saint Augustine of Hippo is one of the most important Christian theologians, and his works have exerted a great influence not only on the development of Western Christianity, but also on Western philosophy. Apart from the Roman Catholic Church, where he is honored as a saint as well as a Church Father, Saint Augustine of Hippo is also a prominent figure in the Anglican Communion, in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and even in some of the churches that grew out of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.

When Fr. Seraphim found out that the early Western Father, Blessed Augustine of Hippo, was being attacked in contemporary Eastern Orthodox circles, then he--himself a Western convert to Orthodoxy--rose in his defense. This book is the outcome. Fr. Seraphim said he wrote it in the hope that it would help remove Augustine as a scapegoat for today's academic theologians, and thus "help free us all to see his and our own weaknesses in a little closer light--for his weaknesses, to a surprising degree, are indeed close to our own." After discussing Blessed Augustine's strengths and weaknesses, Fr. Seraphim examines the opinions of other Holy Fathers concerning him. "His main benefit to us today," he writes, "is probably precisely as a Father of Orthodox pietysomething with which he was filled to overflowing. Here he is one with the simple Orthodox faithful, as well as with all the Holy Fathers of East and West who, whatever their various failings and differences in theoretical points of doctrine, had a single deeply Christian heart and soul. It is this that makes him unquestionably an Orthodox Father." This new edition of The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church contains letters written by Fr. Seraphim concerning Augustine, passages from Augustine's Confessions which Fr. Seraphim found especially moving, and an Orthodox service to Blessed Augustine, commissioned by St. John Maximovitch.