The Institute of Sacred Arts (ISA) at St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVOTS) explores the intersection of human creativity and holiness. Here, Institute Director Dr Peter C. Bouteneff reflects on the activities of the ISA over the past year and his own fruitful sabbatical. 

To learn more about the ISA, visit the Institute’s website, instituteofsacredarts.com.   

Please join me in reflecting on a beautiful year of cultivation and germination for our Institute, and in looking ahead to some exciting events.

In June of 2023 we held our annual Summer Music Institute that brought several noted contemporary composers of Orthodox choral music to our campus: Mother Katherine Weston, Benedict Sheehan, Dawn Helene, and others. Under the leadership of Dn Harrison Russin and Talia Sheehan, the Summer Institute was a place where we could sing their music, engage them in deep conversation, and participate in workshops for conductors, composers, and singers.

Participants at the 2023 Summer Music Institute

I was on sabbatical for both semesters of this past academic year and spent several months out of the country—first in Cambridge, UK on a sabbatical fellowship, and later in the Estonian forest, next to the Arvo Pärt Centre where I was scholar in residence.

While working and writing overseas on a theological book project, I recorded several episodes of our podcast Luminous: Conversations on Sacred Arts. I spoke with poets (a number of them!), artists, composers, scholars—look for our forthcoming episode with Kim Haines-Eitzen, who makes recordings of the desert and reflects on the impact of sound on monasticism.

Dr Peter Bouteneff gives a lecture at the Arvo Pärt Center in Laulasmaa, Estonia, on the topic "The Brink of Despair and the Cup of Tea: St Sophrony and the Polarities of the Spiritual Life," on April 13, 2024.

The Institute took a great step forward in bringing Alexander Lingas on as its associate director. Apart from being a leading scholar of Byzantine music and musicology, Dr Lingas is founding artistic director of the world-renowned choral ensemble Cappella Romana, who are moving from strength to strength with their performances, recordings, and publications. Cappella Romana has just received an NEH grant related to their work in presenting the Canon of Racial Reconciliation and other projects bringing together Orthodox and Black Gospel musical worlds.

This past year Dr Lingas helped our Institute to secure a grant from the Calvin Institute that funded a colloquium in March. Music directors of Orthodox seminaries from around the world gathered on the SVOTS campus to share their experience, wisdom, and resources, to “undertake an inventory of existing chapel musical repertories.” There is more to come on this project!

Dr Alexander Lingas delivers a presentation at St Vladimir’s Seminary during his tenure as the ISA’s Artist in Residence.
 

Last February the Institute was involved in producing a concert at the massive Church of St Ignatius Loyola on Park Ave in New York: the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir performed a stirring program called Pärt / Palestrina, that brought together these two composers separated by five hundred years.

Later that month we hosted an exclusive tour of the Africa and Byzantium exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On a day that the museum was closed to the public, we brought twenty friends of the Institute to that once-in-a-lifetime exhibit. Our own student Jaime Rall—who had interned at the Met Museum all year and was involved in the work behind the scenes—led the tour.

Seminarian Jaime Rall (M.A. ‘25, concentration in Sacred Arts) guides the tour group at the Africa & Byzantium exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art February 28, 2024.
 

In sadder news, on January 18 we lost a very dear friend and colleague, Fr Ivan Moody. A world-renowned composer, conductor, and musicologist, Fr Ivan brought his musical sense, scholarly acumen, and infectious enthusiasm to everything he did. He accompanied the work of our institute from its inaugural conference in 2016. I have recorded conversations with him on video and on our Luminous podcast, which also produced a special commemorative episode featuring guests Dr Alexander Lingas, Tallis Scholars director Peter Phillips, Ivana Medic, and other scholars who worked closely with Fr Ivan. Dr Lingas also directed the seminary’s chorale in a special concert, in February, of Fr Ivan’s music at Saint Anthony Orthodox Church in Bergenfield, NJ. Memory Eternal!

This June I gave a lecture in Fribourg, Switzerland on “The Empathic Power of the Arts in Society,” where I talked about how the arts don’t just speak to us: at their best, they listen and reflect our lives back to us, and that’s often when people speak of them as “spiritual.” That talk built upon my paper at last year’s conference on Music and Spiritual Realities, at the University of St Andrew, now published as part of a fascinating book.

Also in June St Vladimir’s Seminary hosted a workshop of George Kordis’s icon-painting school, Writing the Light. As part of that event, on June 20 Dr Kordis and I held a “semi-public” conversation on the role of the sacred arts in church and society. You can hear that conversation in its entirety on the Luminous podcast.

This coming academic year our invaluable colleague Dr. Rossitza Schroeder will be offering her Introduction to the Sacred Arts course in the autumn, and in the spring semester she will lead a course (co-taught by me and Dr Lingas) on Creation in the Arts of the Orthodox Church. Dr Schroeder has a number of essays in the pipeline for publication, including one entitled “Looking with the Eyes of Faith in the Byzantine Church,” which will appear in the Cambridge Companion to the Byzantine Church.

Iconographer George Kordis assists a student at his icon painting workshop on campus.

Speaking of publications: Byzantine Materiality, an exciting and ground-breaking new volume produced by our Institute and published by DeGruyter, has just appeared, edited by Evan Freeman and Roland Bettancourt. Additionally, soon to appear with St Vladimir’s Seminary (SVS) Press is a volume entitled Rethinking Sacred Arts, edited by myself and the Harvard University Armenian specialist Christina Maranci. There are other exciting book publications from our Institute in the pipeline this coming year.

In closing, you may have heard that Fr Chad Hatfield has retired as president of St Vladimir’s Seminary. Fr Chad has been a consistent and unstinting supporter of the Institute of Sacred Arts. There was no suggested project, no matter how far-fetched it may have sounded, that he didn’t support. I recall how, when former SVOTS faculty member Nicholas Reeves and I approached him with the idea of bringing Arvo Pärt and the Estonian orchestra and choir to Carnegie Hall, he said “Absolutely!” Not only that, but within a matter of weeks, he got on a plane with us to Estonia to meet with the composer and begin laying plans. We’re grateful for your support, Fr Chad—you’ve helped us to do many beautiful things.

Through the educational programs, publications, and events we sponsor, through the conversations that we foster, the Institute of Sacred Arts plays a significant role in the Church and society. On behalf of my colleagues, I thank you for your prayers and support!

Please be in touch if you have questions, encouragement, and ideas. You may email us any time at sacredarts@svots.edu.

Peter Bouteneff
Kulik Professor of Sacred Arts
Director

Main Photo: Students participate in Dr George Kordis’s icon painting workshop on campus in June 2024. 

This June the Institute of Sacred Arts (ISA) brought back world-renowned iconographer Dr George Kordis to St Vladimir’s Seminary.

His icon-painting school, Writing the Light, offered several days of workshops on campus, from June 16–20. Twenty-eight students participated in the workshops. Kordis’ stay at the seminary culminated in a public conversation with ISA Director Dr Peter Bouteneff on the role of the sacred arts in church and society. (Hear that discussion in its entirety through ISA’s Luminous Podcast.)

LISTEN NOW TO THE LUMINOUS PODCAST

“Tradition is creativity. In tradition you receive something, you enrich it with yourself, and you give it to another person. So it’s a dynamic process,” Kordis explained during the conversation. “In the meantime, it is you who enriches what you receive. If you don’t do that, then you don’t continue tradition: you interrupt it.”

Kordis also described the proper mindset of the sacred artist in this dynamic process.

“In Greek, the artist/creator is demiourgos. And this word means someone who is serving community. So, when we say ‘creativity’ we should think of the ability of someone to serve community better and better. To be more ecclesial. That’s real creativity! Not the invention of new individual things.”

In addition to participating in that fruitful conversation with Professor Bouteneff, during his stay on campus Kordis also completed a stunning icon of the three holy youths in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3), seen below.

“Our association with George Kordis adds immeasurably to the life of our Institute,” said Bouteneff. “His mastery of painting and his artistic sensibilities are matched by his uncanny ability to speak theologically about the arts.”

Kordis had previously visited the seminary as artist in residence and offered workshops in the spring of 2022.

ABOUT DR GEORGE KORDIS

Eminent iconographer George Kordis has the rare distinction for a practicing artist of a complete academic training in theology, with advanced theological degrees from Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston and the University of Athens, where he was assistant professor in iconography (theory and practice). His training as a painter preceded and motivated his move into theology: During the 1980s he worked with the Cypriot master iconographer, Fr. Symeon Symeou, and also studied painting at The School of Fine Arts at The Museum of Boston from 1987–89; and even while obtaining his doctorate (Athens) in 1991 he continued his studies in painting and engraving under Fotis Mastichiadis. Dr. Kordis has been a visiting professor teaching icon painting courses at Yale University, the University of South Carolina, the University of Bucharest/Department of Orthodox Theology, and Ukraine Pedagogical University, Odessa, while continuing to create major church programs of iconography—including several in the US (see Holy Trinity in Columbia, SC and, recently, Holy Trinity in Pittsburgh and panel icons, which have been seen in numerous prominent exhibitions at Yale University and elsewhere). Kordis is also a prolific author with wide-ranging interests: theory and practice of Orthodox iconography, Fayum mummy portraits, Theophan the Cretan, Andrei Rublev, Fotis Kontoglou, Greek folk art, and many other topics.

Read his full CV and explore his expansive work.