WHO is Fr. Alexander?

by Fr. Alexis Vinogradov

I recently sat opposite a group of young cinematographers from Russia. They were at best teenagers or younger when Fr. Alexander Schmemann died in 1983, and like most of their generation they never met him in person. They know of him through stories about him and his own writings and recorded radio broadcasts. This little group of Schmemann fans was interviewing me, along with others in America who knew Fr. Alexander, for a documentary on his life and work. Especially poignant is the fact that besides not having met Fr. Alexander, this is a generation that in its youth was effectively surrounded by an atheistic culture, most of them coming to faith later in life.

What can explain the exponential popularity, not only of Fr. Schmemann’s works, but also of the man himself, among people who never knew the man? What is it about him as a person that has drawn such a following; especially in a nation that has obliterated its religious past?

The specific phenomenon of his growing influence in Russia can certainly be explained by a long spiritual famine that is now a century old, from the insurgency of communism into Holy Mother Russia, and the establishment of the militantly atheistic Soviet State. Yet, there is another, possibly more important explanation, but one which is not as evident and touches upon the religious reality in the West as well. This is to say, as Fr. Schmemann himself would caution, that the greatest danger to faith lies not so much in that which is obviously and blatantly against religion, but rather, and more often, from religion itself! In other terms, one must look into the nature of the religion practiced and taught even as it survived in the grueling conditions of Soviet oppression, and the martyrdom of thousands of faithful.

In his now famous lines, Fr. Alexander stated his “two NOs and one YES”: NO to Religion, NO to Secularism, and YES to the Kingdom of God! While atheism falls under the rubric of Secularism (the world for itself without God), Religion is a much trickier problem because generally it is regarded as a benign and even socially good thing in whatever form.

To better understand Fr. Schmemann’s caution concerning Religion – and this is extremely important for us in the West as well – it is important to begin to understand the man behind the message.

It is very telling that when Fr. Alexander himself was often asked to write or speak about other theologians or churchly personalities, he would regularly focus precisely on aspects of their character as the living context of their theology. A great example, easily found now on Google, is his article titled Three Metropolitans, in which he describes Metropolitans Leonty, Vladimir, and Evlogy. All three could not have been more different from each other in time, space, and personality, and yet they each incarnated the Orthodox Christian spirit by the mode of their life. For Fr. Alexander, the “truth” of one’s theology must be manifested by the way in which that theology is lived. Here is a snippet on each one of the Metropolitans from that article:

Evlogy: “He held no administrative authority over us but nonetheless each one of us felt that we belonged to him, that we were needed and even indispensable participants in his life and service in their most important expressions.”

Vladimir: “How disturbed he was with any kind of insincerity, from an affected spiritual style, from precisely that pseudo-spirituality that frequently flourishes where there is no real spirituality.”

Leonty: “He never insisted on anything, he never imposed anything. If he was invited somewhere, he would go. If he was not invited, he didn’t go nor did he ever look for invitations. If he went somewhere he would always bring a present: some small packet, a book or simply, a check. Money flowed through his hands and didn’t stick to them. We can now recall, with shame for our Church, that he would help out poorly paid priests, widows and other clerics, from his own pocket.”

Fr. Alexander and Fr. Joseph Pishtey with His Beatitude Metropolitan Leonty.

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.

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, 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!