Lecture by Robert Bird

Holy Trinity Seminary was pleased to host a lecture by Robert Bird, Assistant Professor at the University of Chicago's Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Associate Faculty member at the Divinity School, on Sunday, March 26, 2006. Dr. Bird's lecture, entitled "Pavel Florensky and Tradition," explored the contribution of Fr. Pavel Florensky (1882-1937) to the retrieval of Orthodox Tradition by examining his role in revitalizing liturgical aesthetics, especially an appreciation of the traditional icon, and his efforts in stimulating a return to the theology of the Fathers. While fully acknowledging Florensky's theological shortcomings, which he suggested were typical of his age, Professor Bird argued that Florensky reintroduced into Russian discourse the very question of Church Tradition. This recovery of Tradition helped enable the theological reflection on Tradition taken up in the generation following Florensky by such neo-patristic theologians as Vladimir Lossky and Fr. Georges Florovsky, and which continues into our own day. A question and answer period followed, during which faculty members and students posed questions regarding the relationship of Florensky's thought to patristic theology.