Alexander Schmemann

13 September 1921 – 13 December 1983

Alexander Schmemann was born in 1921 in Tallinn, Estonia, into a family of Russian émigrés. 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 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, t