Alexander Schmemann

Alexander Dmitrievich Schmemann (Russian: Александр Дмитриевич Шмеман; 13 September 1921, Tallinn, Estonia – 13 December 1983 in Crestwood, New York) was an influential Orthodox Christian priest, teacher, and writer. From 1946 to 1951 he taught in Paris, and afterwards in New York. In his teachings and writings he sought to establish the close links between Christian theology and Christian liturgy. At the time of his death, he was the dean of the Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary.

Alexander Schmemann was born in 1921 in Tallinn, Estonia, into a family of Russian émigrés. His grandfather had been a senator and a member of the State Council and his father an officer of the Imperial Life-Guards. When he was a child his family moved to France, where he was educated in Russian schools and at a French lycee before becoming a student at the University of Paris (1940–1945), where he wrote a thesis on theocracy and the Eastern Roman Empire. In 1943 he married Juliana Osorguine (1923–2017), before completing his theological studies in 1945 at the St. Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris (where he studied with the noted Russian theologian, Father Sergei Bulgakov, amongst others).

In 22 October 1946 Schmemann was ordained to the presbyterate of the Orthodox Church by Vladimir (Tikhonicky). From 1946–51 he taught church history at St. Sergius Institute.

He was invited to join the faculty of Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, then in New York City, where he taught from 1951 onwards. When the seminary moved to its present campus in Crestwood, New York in 1962, Father Alexander assumed the post of dean, which he would hold until his death. He also served as adjunct professor at Columbia University, New York University, Union Theological Seminary and General Theological Seminary in New York. Much of his focus at St Vladimir's was on liturgical theology, which emphasizes the liturgical tradition of the Church as a major sign and expression of the Christian faith.

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