On April 16, 2015, the "Live Ideas" festival sponsored every year by New York Live Arts featured the life and work of famed Orthodox composer Arvo Pärt. Renowned musician Laurie Anderson, the festival's curator, enlisted the Arvo Pärt Project at St. Vladimir's Seminary to help her plan and organize three events with the theme "Arvo Pärt: Journeys in Silence." The festival was also the ideal venue for the public debut of the new SVS Press book Arvo Pärt: Out of Silence authored by Dr. Peter Bouteneff, associate professor of Systematic Theology. Book signings by the author were held several times throughout the course of the day. 

"The release of the book tied in perfectly with the day's discussions," noted the Reverend Dn. Gregory Hatrak, director of Marketing and Operations for SVS Press and Bookstore. "We received many words of thanks for publishing a work dedicated to Arvo Pärt's faith."

dded Dr. Bouteneff, "I wrote this book with a widely diverse readership in mind — within and also outside the Church. The
enthusiasm of this festival audience for our panel discussions, and for my book, was so exciting to see. St. Vladimir's Seminary's deeper engagement with the arts – visual and musical – is already having tangible implications for its outreach into communities we've never before been able to reach."

The Project at St. Vladimir's Seminary is an important component in the Seminary's plans for a new Institute of Sacred Arts. The Institute is described in the Board of Trustees' 2020 Strategic Plan.

Read about the seminary's 2014 Arvo Pärt Carnegie Hall concert.
A reviewer writes about the book on Goodreads

As the holder of the Donohue Chair at the Pontifical Oriental Institute for the 2014-15 academic year, Dr. Paul Meyendorff, St. Vladimir's Father Alexander Schmemann Professor of Liturgical Theology, traveled to Rome, Italy on March 19–28, 2015. The Oriental Institute, part of the Gregorian University, offers graduate degrees in Eastern History, Theology, Liturgy, and Canon Law. At the Institute, the SVOTS professor taught a week-long course and delivered the annual Donohue Lecture to an audience of some 200 persons. The lecture was entitled "Towards a Baptismal Ecclesiology." 

While in Rome, Dr. Meyendorff also visited with alumna Dr. Tamara Grdzelidze. An Orthodox theologian and former staff member of the World Council of Churches (WCC), Dr. Grdzelidze was appointed the nation of Georgia's new ambassador to the Holy See last year. She presented her credentials to Pope Francis at the Vatican in September of 2014. 

From February 27 to March 1, Dr. Paul Meyendorff, Alexander Schmemann Professor of Liturgical Theology, traveled to Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, for a conference on "Sacred Architecture of East and West: Lessons from History and Contemporary Trends." The conference was sponsored by the Huffington Ecumenical Institute, an institute founded with the goal of promoting the unity between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. 

Professor Meyendorff delivered a paper on the understanding of the church building in the Byzantine commentaries on the liturgy, drawing primarily on Ss. Maximus the Confessor (7th century) and Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople (8th century). The conference, which drew over 100 people, was organized by St. Vladimir's alumnus the Reverend Dn. Nicholas Denysenko, Ph.D., who is currently Assistant Professor of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount and Director of the Institute.

Staff of the St. Vladimir's Seminary's Arvo Pärt Project were among those who greeted Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas at a reception in New York, on December 12, 2014. Prime Minister Rõivas, elected in March of this year, told the team, "I am a big Arvo Pärt fan!"

The Estonian leader also thanked the team for their remarkable work in bringing the great Estonian composer to New York last May, and producing concerts with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. The seminary's 2020 Strategic Plan calls for the establishment of an Institute of Sacred Arts at St. Vladimir's, of which The Arvo Pärt Project will be an important component.

On November 5-9, 2014, Professor Paul Meyendorff traveled to Malta to participate in the 11th meeting of the St. Irenaeus Orthodox-Catholic Working Group. The group, an informal gathering of Orthodox and Catholic theologians, has been in existence since 2004, at a time when the official international Orthodox-Catholic dialogue was at a standstill. The group has met annually since, alternating between Orthodox and Catholic venues. "Because this is an unofficial dialogue, participants are able to share their views more freely, unhindered by various ecclesial and political factors that at times derail the official dialogue," notes Dr. Meyendorff.

At this meeting, members discussed issues of primacy and synodality as reflected both during the first millennium and in the recent statements by the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. "Given current difficulties in the official dialogue, it is vitally important to continue the conversation, even if only informally," concludes Prof. Meyendorff. In planning for the future, members of the Working Group agreed that the questions of primacy need to be addressed both separately, by each Church, but also together, so as to develop a church structure that will be acceptable to both sides and will meet the needs of a world that needs a united Christian witness.

The Father Alexander Schmemann Professor of Liturgical Theology Dr. Paul Meyendorff traveled to Washington D.C. on October 23-25, 2014, to participate in the 87th meeting of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation. For the past several years, the group has been working on issues of primacy and conciliarity. This meeting focused on the role of the laity in the life of the church.

In connection with the theme, Dr. Meyendorff presented a paper on baptismal ecclesiology, emphasizing the priestly, prophetic, and kingly roles bestowed on the faithful in baptism, and the implications of this for the life of the Church. The Consultation also began to plan for a special event in 2015, marking the 50th anniversary of the dialogue.

The Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation is an ecumenical standing conference that has met semiannually since 1965. It was founded under the auspices of the Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas (SCOBA), which was later replaced by the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States of America. In June of 2013, SVOTS hosted the 84th dialogue meeting, which was also attended by The Very Rev. John Erickson, former dean of St. Vladimir's.

Very Rev. Dr. J. Sergius Halvorsen

On October 9-11 a group of international scholars gathered at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, MA, for the Fall Conference of the Pappas Patristic Institute. The conference theme was "Patristic Preaching and its Reception," and I delivered a paper entitled "The Tradition of Liturgical Homilies and the Implications for Contemporary Homiletic Practice."

In my paper, I briefly outlined the tradition of reading patristic homilies, such as the Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom, during the liturgical services, and examined the symbiotic relationship between the liturgy and the preaching which occurs within it. The paper also reflected on how elements in patristic liturgical homilies such as conflict, anamnesis and mimesis, might inform contemporary preaching.

Reflecting on my time at the conference, I was grateful to the Board of the Pappas Patristic Institute, and specifically to Dr. Bruce Beck, the conference organizer, for the invitation. I had an opportunity to meet and learn from some remarkable scholars, and graduate students who represented a number of different Christian traditions. Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese spoke at the conference, and we were graciously hosted by the faculty, staff and students of Holy Cross. The papers delivered at the conference addressed patristic preaching from a wide spectrum of academic disciplines, and as a homiletician, I gained a great deal from preparing the paper, and from the discussions I had with the conference participants.

Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Rhetoric The Rev. Dr. Sergius Halvorsen serves as a mentor to participants in the annual National Festival of Young Preachers. Sponsored by the Academy of Preachers, the festival gathers students between the ages of 16 and 28 for three days of preaching, fellowship, and education.

Rev. Dn. Michael Hyatt is a bestselling author, speaker, entrepreneur, and the former CEO of Thomas Nelson. He currently serves St. Vladimir’s Seminary as executive chair of the Board of Trustees, and is attached to St. Ignatius Antiochian Orthodox Church in Franklin, TN.

From September 21-26, 2014, The Father Alexander Schmemann Professor of Liturgical Theology Dr. Paul Meyendorff traveled to Arad, Romania, to attend the 8th meeting of the International Working Group on Orthodox Theological Education. The group, which includes official representatives from most of the autocephalous Orthodox Churches, is tasked with assisting theological schools and faculties in raising academic standards and encouraging cooperation and exchange.

As Dr. Meyendorff, who represented both the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) and St. Vladimir's Seminary at the meeting, noted: "This is exactly the kind of work St. Vladimir's is trying to do in establishing the International Houses of Study. Orthodox theological education is enriched when Orthodox faculty members meet one another and work together."

In Arad, the group met first with the deans of all the theological schools in Romania, who were holding their biennial meeting. Afterwards, the participants met for a full day of fruitful discussion with the dean and professors of the theological faculty of the University of Arad. Attending the meeting as members of the group were two other SVOTS alumni: Fr. Rauno Pietarinen, representing the Orthodox Church of Finland and the coordinator of the group, and Andrey Gusev, representing the Russian Orthodox Church.

Dr. Peter C. Bouteneff

On Wednesday, September 24, 2014, St. Vladimir's associate professor of Systematic Theology Dr. Peter Bouteneff, and Assistant Professor of Liturgical Music Dr. Nicholas Reeves, lectured at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ, speaking on the spiritual foundations of composer Arvo Pärt’s music. The two faculty members have been developing The Arvo Pärt Project at St. Vladimir's Seminary since 2011, in an effort to explore the Orthodox roots of the famed Estonian maestro's music.

The seminary's professors were invited to Westminster by senior faculty member Dr. James Jordan, who led the Williamson Voices choir in recording a Grammy-nominated CD, “Annelies.” (The Grammy went instead to the Arvo Pärt CD, "Adam’s Lament.") As his choir is currently drawing on Arvo Pärt’s repertoire, Dr. Jordan invited Dr. Reeves (a Westminster alumnus) and Dr. Bouteneff to enrich the singers’ understanding of Pärt’s Orthodox Christian roots. A 90-minute presentation, accompanied by video presentations, was warmly received.

The choir then performed several short segments for the visiting professors. Dr. Reeves commented, “I was of course moved by the response of the students to the lecture, but I was also deeply impressed by the emotional capacity and control of such a young choir. The Williamson Voices are coming into their own in the America choral scene both here and abroad.”

Collaborative efforts with Mr. Pärt  have already resulted in a groundbreaking concert and lecture series in May and June of this year, which included a sold-out concert in Carnegie Hall. Also planned are publications devoted to Mr. Pärt's personal spiritual narrative, and a long-term academic partnership between the Arvo Pärt Centre in Estonia and St. Vladimir's. Dr. Bouteneff says, “It is a joy to continue the work that we have been so deeply engaged in, with the Arvo Pärt Project. I’m delighted to see it finding its place in the seminary’s expanding efforts to engage culture, through the Institute for Sacred Arts that we are currently developing as a key component of the 2020 Strategic Plan.”