Alexander Schmemann quotes

Alexander Schmemann was a Russian Orthodox Christian priest, theologian, and influential liturgical scholar. His teachings and writings deeply shaped the spiritual and theological life of the Orthodox Church in the 20th century, especially in the West. He devoted his life to explaining the meaning of Orthodox liturgy and inspiring a renewed vision of Christian faith. Here are 11 of his quotes:

Every evil screams only one message: 'I am good.'

Alexander Schmemann

Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something strictly utilitarian. Food is still treated with reverence...To eat is still something more than to maintain bodily functions. People may not understand what that 'something more' is, but they nonetheless desire to celebrate it. They are still hungry and thirsty for sacramental life.

Alexander Schmemann

It seems to me that any ideology is bad because it is inevitably reductive and identifies other ideologies as evil, and itself with truth, whereas both truth and goodness are always transcendent.

Alexander Schmemann

For one who thinks food in itself is the source of life, eating is the communion with the dying world, it is communion with death. Food itself is dead, it is life that has died and it must be kept in refrigerators like a corpse.

Alexander Schmemann

If the Church is in Christ, its initial act is always the act of thanksgiving, of returning the world to God.

Alexander Schmemann

Love is the essence of the holiness of the Church.

Alexander Schmemann

Academic theology is false.

Alexander Schmemann

Principles are what people have instead of God.

Alexander Schmemann

We should have understood long ago that there is, in this world, religion without God, religion as a center of all idols that possess fallen man, religion that is the justification for these idols.

Alexander Schmemann