On March 17, 2022, the Institute of Sacred Arts (ISA) hosted several distinguished scholars and artists to reflect together on the theme, “Tradition and Innovation in the Arts of the Orthodox Church.” This event, conceived and led by Dr. Rossitza Schroeder (associate professor of art history), was inspired by the residency of iconographer Dr. George Kordis, whose art and writings directly address themes surrounding creativity, tradition, and innovation.
Speakers at the academic roundtable were Fr. Chrysostomos Nassis, a liturgist and canonist at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki; Alexander Lingas, a musicologist at City, University of London and director of Cappella Romana; Karin Krause, an art historian at the University of Chicago; Vasileos Marinis, a scholar of sacred architecture and hagiography at Yale University; Maria Evangelatou (remote), an art historian at the University of California, Santa Cruz; and Olga Yunak, art historian at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.
Additionally, the ISA welcomed among the informed guests Fr. Silouan Justiniano of the Monastery of St. Dionysios (Long Island, NY), himself an iconographer and frequent contributor to the Orthodox Arts Journal (see his report of this event), and Richard Barrett, director of grants and publications for Cappella Romana. Seminary Academic Dean Dr. Ionuţ-Alexandru Tudorie, together with several faculty members from St. Vladimir’s, attended the event as did around sixteen seminarians.
The papers represented a broad temporal and geographical span—from the ninth to the twenty-first century, and from Novgorod and Constantinople to New York. The topics ranged from issues of iconographic novelties and creative solutions in Byzantine psalters, the interpretation of innovation and tradition in Orthodox musical practices, the flourishing of individual artistic styles in the peripheries of the Orthodox commonwealth, contemporary architectural church building, and the effects of digitization on the liturgy.
After the delivery of papers and discussion among participants, Dr. Kordis closed the event with a presentation of his own, entitled “Tradition and Innovation: The Theology of Rhythm as a Guide in a Sea of Creative Possibilities.”
From left to right: Dr. Rossitza B. Schroeder, Fr. Silouan Justiniano, Olga Yunak, Dr. Karin Krause, Dr. Peter C. Bouteneff, Dr. George Kordis, Fr. Chrysostomos Nassis, Dr. Alexander Lingas, and Dr. Vasileos Marinis
