In the past thirty years, I have attended almost 7000 liturgies in the United States, Canada, Russia, and Greece. Some of these have been in small candlelit chapels in the desert of Mount Athos; others have been in magnificent imperial monasteries with a thousand years of history. I have beheld liturgies celebrated by patriarchs and […]
In a part of America that is rich with historic Orthodox churches, a new one, faithful to the local architectural tradition, is now under construction. In the spring of 2018 I travelled to Spruce Island, where St. Herman of Alaska lived from 1808 until his death in 1837. I had come to design a new […]
It has been my particular honor to create a magnificent shrine and reliquary for the Russian Royal Martyrs. The shrine was commissioned by an American convert to Orthodoxy as a gift to the Hermitage of the Holy Cross, a Russian Orthodox monastery in West Virginia, USA. It was installed in time to commemorate the centenary […]
In late 2016, as the tragic centenary of the Russian revolutions was approaching, conversations began among musicians in Russia and the U. S. regarding an appropriately solemn and musically significant way to pay homage to the memory of those who had been affected by these events—in particular, composers, choirmasters, and church singers—both those who suffered […]
The Patriarch Tikhon Choir Releases Its New CD In 2012, Vladimir Gorbik, the eminent Choirmaster of the Moscow Representation Church of the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Monastery, came to North America for the first time to teach a master class on the interpretation of Russian Orthodox sacred choral music at St. Vladimir’s Seminary. After the success […]
This is post 1 of 3 in the series “To Write or to Paint an Icon” Professor John Yiannias, Ph.D., expert in Early Christian and Byzantine Art, University of Pittsburgh, has a bold opinion on the issue of why “write” is the wrong verb to use for making an icon. “While, on the face of […]
I would like to draw the reader’s attention to this wonderful publication from Russia. Kolomenskaya Versta Ltd. produces albums, manuals, catalogs and postcards featuring and publicizing contemporary iconography and liturgical art. The fourth edition of their catalog of iconographers, “Divine Temple” is now available. It is printed in English and Russian. From the publisher: We […]
Pravmir.com has an article up featuring an ongoing exhibit of Russian “folk icons”. I have included a few images below, but the article should be read in its entirety. A few things come to mind when looking at these folk icons. As the author points out, these icons have a certain “warm-heartedness” about them, and […]
We often hear it said that traditional Orthodox liturgical arts are reviving. But how far advanced is this revival, how mature is it, and what in fact are we reviving? In this article I would like to stimulate discussion by briefly considering three related subjects: indigenous iconography, maturity, and features of a healthy climate that […]
This is post 1 of 12 in the series “An Icon of the Kingdom of God” The liturgical art of the Orthodox Church offers the world nothing less than a vision of the Kingdom of God. There can be no higher calling for art than this. Liturgical art is the combined effort of apostles and […]