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'''Philip Sherrard''' (September 23, 1922 — May 30, 1995) was a British author, translator, and philosopher. His work includes important translations of [[Modern Greek]] poets, and books on Modern Greek literature and culture, [[metaphysics]], [[theology]], [[art]] and [[aesthetics]]. A pioneer of Modern Greek studies in [[England]], he was influential in making major [[Greeks|Greek]] poets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries known in the English-speaking world. He was also a prolific writer on theological and philosophical themes, addressing the origins of the social and spiritual crisis he believed was occurring in the developed world, and specifically exploring modern attitudes towards the [[environment (biophysical)|environment]] from a Christian perspective.

Philip Owen Arnould Sherrard was born on September 23, 1922 in [[Oxford]]. His family had many connections with the literary world of the period: his mother, Brynhild Olivier, had been a member of [[Rupert Brooke]]'s circle before the First World War, and his half-sister was married to [[Quentin Bell]], the nephew of [[Virginia Woolf]]. He was educated at [[Dauntsey's School ]] and at [[Peterhouse, Cambridge]], where he obtained a degree in History.<br><br> Sherrard first came to Greece as a soldier after the [[Axis occupation of Greece during World War II| liberation of Athens]] in 1946 <ref>[http://deniseharveypublisher.gr/people/philip-sherrard PHILIP SHERRARD 1922–1995]</ref>. The culture and traditional way of life of the country made a profound impression on him. At this time he first corresponded with the poet [[George Seferis]], whose work he was subsequently to translate into English. He also met and married his first wife, Anna Mirodia. After living for a period in London, Sherrard returned to Greece to serve as Assistant Director of the [[British School of Archaeology at Athens]] in 1951-52, and again in 1957-62. His doctoral thesis on the Greek poets [[Solomos]], [[Palamas]], [[Cavafy]], [[Angelos Sikelianos]], and Seferis (King's College, London) was published in 1956 as ''The Marble Threshing Floor''. In the same year Sherrard was baptized into the Orthodox Church.<ref>[http://deniseharveypublisher.gr/people/philip-sherrard PHILIP SHERRARD 1922–1995]</ref><br>In 1959 Sherrard bought part of disused magnesite mine near the small shipping town of [[Limni]] in the island of [[Evia]]. He planted trees and plants where the former mine installations had been, and helped to restore the homes of the former directors who had lived there before the mine was abandoned at the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1970 he accepted a lectureship in the History of the Orthodox Church, a post attached jointly to King's College, London and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES). After his resignation in 1977, he moved back to Greece, where Limni now became his permanent home. In 1979 he married his second wife, the publisher Denise Harvey. They endeavoured as far as possible to live a simple life according to the principles of the Orthodox Church, without many of the conveniences of modern living, such as electricity and the telephone.<br>In 1980, together with [[Keith Critchlow]], [[Brian Keeble]], and the poet [[Kathleen Raine]], he was one of the founding members of the journal ''Temenos'', a review devoted to the 'arts of the imagination'. This eventually led to the foundation of the teaching organization, the ''[[Temenos Academy]]'', based in London.

Sherrard's first book was ''The Marble Threshing Floor'' (1956), an “introduction to modern Greek poetry for English-speaking readers, which, together with his translations, brought the poetry of Cavafy and Seferis, together with its cultural background, to the attention of the literary world.”<ref>[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19950605/ai_n13986685/pg_1?tag=artBody;col1 OBITUARY: Philip Sherrard]</ref>. As a translator of Modern Greek poetry, he had a long and productive collaboration with [[Edmund Keeley]], together publishing many books, among them ''Four Greek Poets'' (1966), the ''Collected Poems'' of George Seferis (1967) and of C.P. Cavafy (1975) and ''Selected Poems'' by Angelos Sikelianos (1979) and [[Odysseus Elytis]] (1981). The importance of these translations is indicated by the fact that both Seferis and Elytis went on to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, after their work had become known in the non-Greek-speaking world.<br>

Among the works for which he is best known (together with his collaborators [[Kallistos Ware]] and [[Gerald Palmer]]) is the complete translation of the ‘’[[Philokalia]]’’‘’Philokalia’’, a compendium of mystical writings by the spiritual fathers of the Orthodox church. 1998 saw the posthumous publication of ''Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition'', a collection of articles dealing with subjects such as Tradition, death and dying, the problem of evil, and the revival of contemplative [[hesychast]] spirituality.