Orthodoxy in Dialogue has published two interviews to date. Two more are presently in the works.

If you would like to interview someone for us, email us first to gauge our interest in your proposed interviewee. Attach a Word document to your query containing the final draft of the questions that you intend to ask your subject. 

The word limit for interviews is considerably more flexible than for most of our articles. See here and here for examples of what we consider a reasonable length for questions and answers.

When you submit your interview for publication, your interviewee must also email his or her consent to publish.

Interviews can be conducted in writing or in person. You may submit a written or videoed interview. This opens unlimited possibilities to interview subjects anywhere in the world. Read More

What do postmodern hermeneutics and Orthodox worship have to do with each other? More than you might think….

While only rarely reflecting explicitly on liturgy, French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) gave sustained attention to several themes pertinent to the interpretation of liturgy, including symbol, metaphor, narrative, subjectivity, and memory. Inspired by his well-known aphorism, “The symbol gives rise to thought,” my Liturgical Theology after Schmemann: An Orthodox Reading of Paul Ricoeur offers an original exploration of the symbolic world of the Byzantine Rite (and specifically its “Great Blessing of Water” on Theophany), illumined by what Ricoeur called his “hermeneutical phenomenology.”

This endeavour is in turn a response to the call of Greek theologian Pantelis Kalaitzidis for Orthodox theologians to renew their dialogue with contemporary philosophy. He laments that such a dialogue has in recent times been commonly held in disfavour in the Christian East—an unintended result, perhaps, of the 20th-century “neo-patristic synthesis” promoted by the renowned Georges Florovsky (1893-1979). In “From the ‘Return to the Fathers’ to the Need for a Modern Orthodox Theology” (St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 54.1, 2010: 5-36), Kalaitzidis cites approvingly the following exhortation of Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983): 

Orthodox theology must keep its patristic foundations, but it must also go “beyond” the Fathers if it is to respond to a new situation created by centuries of philosophical development. And in this new synthesis or reconstruction, the western philosophical tradition (source and mother of the Russian “religious philosophy” of the 19th and 20th centuries) rather than the Hellenistic [sic], must supply theology with its conceptual framework. An attempt is thus made to “transpose” theology into a new “key,” and this transposition is considered as the specific task and vocation of Russian theology. Read More

APRIL 2018

Great and Holy Week

Lenten Reflections: “Thank You” to Our Contributors

Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate under Investigation for Supporting Russia’s War against Ukraine

Orthodox Christians for Accountability: A Historical Resource

Black Lives Matter

He Who Hung the Earth Upon the Waters

Lamentation

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

Exultation

Catechetical Homily of St. John Chrysostom Read More

A special issue of Religions.

Since the beginning of modernity, the relationship between art and religion has been a multifaceted one, characterized both by tensions and by productive exchanges.

One can claim that the modern concept of “art” (and the corresponding modern institution of art) has been one of the “secular religious” expressions of modernity. The language we have been employing to characterize the domain of “fine arts” and “aesthetic” experiences has been remarkably “religious.” We “meditate” in front of artworks; art allows us to experience a “spiritual” excitement; we make pilgrimages to see and venerate masterpieces in their (secular) sacred spaces (e.g., museums) that require a special decorum, inspiring the atmosphere of devotion.

This way (and following the lead provided by Walter Benjamin) we witness to an exchange between the “aura” of devotional (religious-aesthetic) objects, and the “aura” of (secular-religious) artworks. This exchange of “auratic” experiences can also be seen in switching the roles between traditional sacred spaces (churches) and modern (secular–sacred) museums: modernity turned museums into the places of silent warship of sacred objects (artworks), while churches became exhibition spaces, were most of the visitors go to see artworks, not to celebrate the Eucharist. Read More