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News Release
Fr Leonid Kishkovsky Delivers the Annual Fr Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture

 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 1, 2005

 

Crestwood, NY—Many people joined the St Vladimir's Seminary community on Sunday evening, January 31, 2005, to hear Fr Leonid Kishkovsky deliver the Twenty-second Annual Fr Alexander Schmemann Memorial Lecture. Fr Kishkovsky spoke on "Orthodoxy Today: Tradition or Traditionalism" to an audience of about 120.

In his talk, he pointed out that both "traditionalists" and other Orthodox Christians alike are committed to living according to the Church's tradition. The approach of traditionalism, whether expressed within the canonical Church or in non-canonical groups, typically revolves around the opposition to "ecumenism,” concerns about liturgical practices such as frequent communion, and particularly as regards the adoption of the Gregorian (or "new") calendar. To be a "traditionalist" is fully within the range of Orthodox approaches, said Fr Kishkovsky, while to preach an ideology of "traditionalism" can lead to a kind of idolatry, impeding the expression of the Church's living faith.

On the other hand, the concerns of traditionalists are prompted by genuinely troubling problems within the Church today, such as secularism and the compartmentalization of faith as only one component a secular lifestyle.  Fr Kishkovsky used as a reference point Fr Alexander Schmemann's essays on Orthodoxy in America (addressing, respectively "the canonical problem," "the liturgical problem," and "the spiritual problem"), written forty years ago, which addressed many of the same problems and conflicts between "traditionalists" and "reformers" within Orthodoxy. Fr Kishkovsky pointed out both in his lecture and in the ensuing discussion that while some things have improved since those essays were written, other things have stayed the same, or worsened.

Fr Kishkovsky is Assistant to the OCA Chancellor for External Affairs and Interchurch relations and has vast experience serving the Orthodox Church both nationally and internationally through leadership in organizations such as SCOBA, IOCC, and the World Council of Churches.