Thanksgiving, Salvation, and Eternal Joy Personally, Fr. Alexander disdained any flourishes about his own importance to the Church, but if we can gather a hint from his description of the Metropolitans, or in another example, the liturgical prayerfulness and “presence” of a Father Bulgakov, then it is certain that he recognized qualities that were also inherently in him. Like Evlogy, Fr. Schmemann made each person feel that they “belong” to him, because he was genuinely interested in each one he met. Like Vladimir he abhorred all pseudo-spirituality of dress and style and language that abounds so frequently especially in Russian piety, and now regrettably in America. And like Leonty, Fr. Alexander also never “imposed” himself, but functioned joyfully (though not necessarily always “happily”) within the oftenambiguous ways of American Orthodoxy.
hear his voice in a recording, or watch his joyful and loving and honest smile on film. The answer to the authorities of the men sent to arrest Christ (John 7:46) was: “No man ever spoke like this man!” Whenever I hear that passage, my mind goes to Fr. Alexander, for what remains is not only the content of his words, but especially the manner in which he spoke and wrote them. What permeates the work of this “free man in Christ” is not only the soundness of his theology, but what that theology is deeply rooted in: the love of God and neighbor shown by Fr. Alexander’s own unique presence among us!
Fr. Alexander was, as Professor Kesich so succinctly said at his funeral, a “free man in Christ!” It is this indomitable freedom that rings through his words and texts, whether we see them on a page,
Summer/Fall 2014
Fr. Alexander and Fr. Joseph Pishtey with His Beatitude Metropolitan Leonty.
Encounters with Fr. Alexander Schmemann by Fr. John Jillions
I regularly recall three encounters with Fr. Alexander.
In the winter of 1975 he came to Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral in Montreal, where I was a university student. I remember very clearly his insistence that “everyone must have his own theology.” As long as this faith remains only of the Fathers and the Saints then it is unreal and has not yet made its way deeply into my mind, soul and heart. In 1978, my first year at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, Fr. Alexander was presiding at the Matins of Great and Holy Saturday. Burned into my memory is the image of Fr. Alexander censing briskly as the first proclamation of the resurrection broke through the darkness and the lights went on: “Blessed art Thou, O Lord, teach me Thy statutes...By destroying the power of death, O Savior, Thou didst raise Adam and save all men from hell!” Fr. Alexander’s face was radiant and determined, even defiant, and I thought of the verse from Isaiah, “I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame” (Isaiah 50:7). In the Spring of 1983 Fr. Alexander was already sick with cancer. I had graduated from seminary three years earlier and was working at Banker’s Trust next to the World Trade Center, contemplating a difficult decision about ordination to the priesthood. I rarely spoke with Fr. Alexander over the years – I was in awe of him and always tongue-tied – but I knew I needed his advice, so I called him from the lobby payphone. He listened carefully to my dilemma and then said, “John, you always know where the easy way comes from.” These three encounters and others continue to guide me, as do his writings (especially his Journals). He was a man of utter inner honesty and devotion to Christ as the truth, which no piety, no ideology and no idols must be allowed to distort.
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