One after the other, as different religious groups have come to this country and grown in numbers and influence, books for and about them have first trickled, then flowed, into the mainstream of American life. That process has begun for Eastern Orthodox Christians, whose faith is also attracting converts. Perhaps it is the sense of something authentic, spiritually rigorous and mystical that draws the non-Orthodox to both the books and the faith.
Orthodox author Frederica Mathewes-Green commented in the L.A. Times just before last Christmas about two books on the faith and example of a Russian Orthodox priest who was imprisoned under Communism. St. Vladimir's Seminary Press published Father Arseny, 1893—1973: Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father (1998) and Father Arseny: Cloud of Witnesses (Sept. 2001) translated by Vera Bouteneff from underground manuscripts compiled by a writer known only as "the servant of God Alexander." Wrote Mathewes-Green, "The character of this kindly, long-suffering priest contrasts with the American expectation of what a successful Christian leader would be like: glib, brisk, upbeat, forceful.... Fr. Arseny differs in another way: he has contact with the supernatural. American Christian spokesmen live in an orderly, corporate sort of world, but Fr. Arseny is frequently shown at the crux of miraculous events."
In Facing East (Harper San Francisco, 1997), Mathewes-Green wrote of her own conversion from the Episcopal Church and followed a year in the life of her small Orthodox mission parish (her husband, Gary, was an Episcopal priest for 15 years and, in 1993, became Father Gregory, an Antiochian Orthodox priest). She says that with her latest book, The Illumined Heart: The Ancient Christian Path of Transformation (Paraclete, Oct.), she hoped to recover the idea of Christian supernatural transformation and to introduce readers to such early Christian practices as repentance, praying without ceasing, fasting and communal worship, which she says the Orthodox have preserved better than anyone else.
Orthodox books have been slow to sift into the broader market here because of Orthodoxy's basic nature as an immigrant community, Mathewes-Green speculates. There had been academic presses and some devotional works, but the first breakthrough general-market book came in 1963, when Pelican published The Orthodox Church by the British author Timothy Ware, now Bishop Kallistos Ware. The book is in its third edition and still the foremost introduction to Orthodox Christianity. Another book that has reached out to general audiences is Becoming Orthodox (Conciliar Press, revised and updated in 1999) by Father Peter E. Gillquist, Conciliar's publisher, about his 1987 conversion—and that of about 2,000 others—from evangelical Christianity.
"We're really still in the infancy of Orthodox publishing in English," says Warren Farha, owner of the Eighth Day Books store and mail-order company in Wichita, Kans. "You have lots of people coming into the church from Protestant backgrounds, both Anglican and evangelical, so that's influencing the way that Orthodox books are being published," as well as their tone and audience. Doubleday's September 2001, The Mountain of Silence by Kyriacos C. Markides (e-book, Mar.; paper, Nov.) is a significant and serious addition to Orthodoxy's mainstream presence, Farha says. Markides, a sociologist who has returned to his Greek Orthodox roots from agnosticism, writes of his conversations with mentor Father Maximos on the island of Cyprus. Another Doubleday book, The Living Christ (Mar.) by Catholic writer Harold Fickett, includes a chapter focusing on Farha's Orthodox parish, St. George Cathedral in Wichita. Eighth Day enters the publishing business itself with Feast of Friendship (Apr.) by Paul O'Callaghan, St. George's pastor, who discusses friendship as a main way that human beings grow. Farha says, "Our hope is that we will do books that are often by Orthodox authors but that engage Western thought constructively." Also on Warha's new-and-important list are Philokalia: New and Selected Poems (Zoo Press, Apr.) by the contemporary American poet Scott Cairns, who has been exploring Orthodox theology and spiritual tradition, and Eucharist, Bishop, Church (Holy Orthodox Press; Oct. 2001) by John Zizioulos, a Greek Orthodox bishop and internationally known theologian (trans. by Elizabeth Theokritoff).
In April, the University of Notre Dame Press will publish Living Icons: Persons of Faith in the Eastern Church by Michael Plekon, which profiles as examples 10 people, and Ivan Sergeevich Gagarin: The Search for Orthodox and Catholic Union by Jeffrey Bruce Beshoner, a study of nationality and religious identity in 19th-century Russian history.
This month, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, still the major Orthodox publisher in English, publishes Orthodox and Wesleyan Spirituality, discourses from a joint conference of Orthodox and Wesleyan theologians edited by ST Kimbrough. Theology of Illness (May) by Jean-Claude Larchet, trans. by Michael Breck, collects biblical and Eastern Patristic texts about illness and how it affects the soul. On the Doctrine of God (June), trans. and introduction by Lionel Wickham, offers theological orations on the Holy Trinity by St. Gregory, fourth-century bishop of Nazianzus. September brings On Death by famed theologian Alexander Schmemann, trans. by Alexis Vinogradov, on the brightness of joy within the darkness of death. In October comes Bishop Ware's newest, In the Image of the Trinity: Volume 2 of the Collected Works. "I think it's an interesting time because there's a lot of new attention being paid both in the Roman Catholic and the evangelical communities to the Church Fathers, theologically, spiritually," Farha says, noting that this naturally increases the dialogue between Orthodoxy and the rest of Christianity.
