Update - August 2021

Dear Friends,

We’re excited to update you with an account of our events and happenings during one of the world’s crazier years. By God’s grace, much has happened. There are three sections to this report: Listening, Outreach, and Academics. And we close with some thoughts about the future.

1. Listening

Survey

Among other things, this has been a year for taking pulses, for listening. Between October and December 2020 we put out an extensive online survey, listening for people’s interest in the sacred arts at St. Vladimir’s. Here are just some of the results from the 235 responses:

• Most respondents were already invested in the arts. No surprise that 64% said they’d be more interested in coming to study at SVS because it has a sacred arts program.

• Of these, 20% were interested in a residential MA.

• The rest were interested in hybrid or fully-online programs, whether certificates or earned degrees.

There’s much more to consider from these responses.

Sacred Arts Self-Study and Report    

Continuing with the “listening” theme, last year we engaged Hal Abeles, of Teachers College/Columbia University, to help us assess how the arts were influencing the Seminary’s curriculum. Hal conducted surveys as well as extensive interviews with students and faculty, resulting in a super-useful 30-page report. The upshot of the report was that students and faculty alike believed the arts to be central to Orthodox Christian teaching and practice, but that they were not yet well integrated into our teaching. This report was always meant to serve as a “before” picture. We’ve built in Part 2 of this process in 2024, with the hopes that our “after” picture will reveal deep impact from our work together.

Templeton Application    

With the above in mind, we recently hit “send” on a grant application with the Templeton Religion Trust. If successful, this grant would bring us around $200k to help us identify resources for better integrating the arts into our teaching of scripture, dogmatics, liturgy, and other disciplines. We’ll find out in March 2022 whether or not we go forward.

In the meantime, our approach to Templeton has shown us that the Institute of Sacred Arts is very much on the radar of other theological colleges and seminaries who are beginning to explore the arts in their teaching. Another Templeton-funded project sought us out for participation in their online symposia, and conducted surveys with ten of our students last year. Our Institute is definitely getting noticed — for who we are, what we’re doing, and what we can uniquely contribute to the field.

2. Outreach    

Logo and Graphics

You have all seen our new logo – one of the especially brilliant creations of the Seminary’s new full-time graphic designer, Anna Margheritino. Watch this cool 30-second video about it.

You’re seeing Anna’s work throughout this report, with the attractive graphics she has created for our many events. It is such a great blessing having her on the Seminary team.

Podcast and Student Blog

One of the most enjoyable of our new projects for me (Peter) has been our new podcast series, Luminous: Conversations on Sacred Arts. Visit the podcast page to see an ever-growing list of our guests – artists, composers, scholars, movers-and-shakers of all walks of life – talking with Peter about their work and about what “sacred arts” mean to them. Our 20 guests so far have included Krista West, Jonathan Pageau, Jeremy Begbie, Metr. Savas of Pittsburgh, Scott Cairns, and many others. Over 3,500 downloads so far.

Accompanying the podcast is a brand new blog called Illuminations: Student Voices on the Arts, curated by Rossitza Schroeder. It’s great to see the arts come alive through the impressions and studies of our seminarians.

Parish Workshops

During the deepest months of the Covid crisis, when parishes were struggling with questions of how and whether to sing in church, and keep choirs motivated, Macrina Ross had the fine idea of offering our services to parishes with one-hour workshops. Peter collaborated with Greg Abdallah, Zach Mandell, and Phillip Ritchey to present six dynamic workshops across the US, with practical strategies on staying motivated and keeping voices in shape, as well resources on how other parishes had been coping.

Summer institute

Our Summer Music Institute, held June 2-5, 2021, was another success, with over 220 registrants. As last year’s, this was an all-online event, with all its advantages (global participation) and disadvantages (how do you sing on Zoom?)! Working with Harrison Russin and Talia Sheehan, we made the most of this format, engaging some familiar and some new faces as faculty, and creating extensive pre-event video content. This format, together with some stellar keynote lectures (David Drillock, Bp Daniel Findikyan, Timothy Patitsas, and Mother Christophora), resulted in a very well-received (and even financially profitable!) event.

So it’s official: By popular demand, the SVS Summer Institute is back! Now we’ll have to decide together whether our future Institutes should be online, in-person, or hybrid.    

3. Academics

Symposia and Publications    

Some of our Institute’s main academic activities have been the mini-symposia that we’ve been gathering since 2016. Between 2016 and 2018 we had several in-person meetings on our campus, and—like so much else—last year’s symposium went fully online. We met for four consecutive Fridays, for three hours each! These symposia are yielding some excellent and ground-breaking essays by scholars and artists of different disciplines and specializations. A book from our previous meetings, co-edited by myself and Christina Maranci, is nearly ready for submission, and a volume representing our symposium on Liturgy and Sacred Arts – is in its early stages. We are in fruitful discussions about a possible SVS Press series on Sacred Arts.

Degree Concentration

Through a lot of hard work on the part of Alex Tudorie, John Barnet, Tracy Gustilo, and myself, we have designed the first of a series of concentrations for the MA program: a concentration in Sacred Arts. This is a full SVS Masters degree in theology, with added courses and seminars each semester dedicated to themes in the arts. We will be publicizing this opportunity extensively during the coming academic year. If you know someone who may be interested, contact us!

Artist in Residence Program    

In the meantime, we are thrilled to be having as our first-ever Artist in Residence the renowned iconographer and iconologist George Kordis. He has been commissioned to paint the interiors of several massive Orthodox churches around the world, not to mention his icons as well as his creative/impressionistic painting. He also has been on the faculty of the University of Athens. Prof. Kordis will be with us for two months of the spring semester 2022, enriching our campus life. Stay tuned, as we also plan public events around his residency.

4. Looking to the Future

The Institute’s new assistant director is someone who joined the SVS faculty in 2020, Dr. Rossitza Schroeder. Prof. Schroeder has been teaching hybrid courses at the Seminary as Associate Professor of Art History, and is a marvelous support to all our work at the Institute of Sacred Arts. I’m immensely grateful to Dr. Tracy Gustilo who served as assistant director during the previous two years.

Having sent off our Templeton grant application, Rossitza and I are now working towards a five-year plan for our Institute. We’re doing this on the basis of what we’re hearing from the public (see “Listening” above) as well as through conversations with faculty and staff colleagues, and with you, our constituents and supporters. We’ve been helped greatly by the Henry Luce Foundation as well as InTrust, and are looking to other grant opportunities. We are also looking to draw conservatively but creatively from seminary endowment funds earmarked for visual and musical arts.    

In all we do, we are grateful for your prayers, support, and collaboration.

Yours,