With Sergei Bulgakov, Vladimir Lossky, Justin Popović and Dumitru Stăniloae he was one of the more influential Eastern Orthodox Christian theologians of the mid-20th century.

He was particularly concerned that modern Christian theology might receive inspiration from the lively intellectual debates of the patristic traditions of the undivided Church rather than from later Scholastic or Reformation categories of thought.

Georgiy Vasilievich Florovsky was born in Yelisavetgrad in the Kherson Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine) on 9 September 1893, the fourth child of an Orthodox priest.

Raised in an erudite environment, he learned English, German, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew while a schoolboy, and at eighteen he started to study philosophy and history.

In 1949, Florovsky moved to the United States to take a position as Dean of Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York City.

There, his development of the curriculum led to the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York granting the Seminary an Absolute Charter in 1953.