In spite of these damning observations, it would be a mistake to read Schmemann’s journals through this lens alone. Indeed, just ten days before he wrote that entry about the “thicket of idols” he wrote about being “elated” by the Pittsburgh “All-American Council” in November 1973, the bi-annual gathering of about 1000 bishops, clergy and laity from across North America.

I went to the council quite downcast and with a lack of any enthusiasm, not expecting much. After three days of incredible effort and tension (I was chairman again) suddenly it became quite clear: Our Church is alive in spite of everything, and an assembly of rather “little” people is transfigured into the Church. Wonderful prayer services. Hundreds of communicants and, mainly, a kind of common inspiration. I still feel elated by the Council. The miracle of the Holy Spirit in an American Hilton Hotel! (18)

It would also be a mistake to read Schmemann’s critique as a rebellion against hierarchy. While being critical of so many aspects of contemporary Orthodoxy, Schmemann repeatedly rejects rebellion as a valid modus operandi in the Church. He spent much of his career working closely with bishops—and arguing with them—but he says, “I believe in bishops with the same faith I believe in the Church,” because bishops, in their essential conservatism, preserve the patient and careful discernment of spirits the Church needs in every age (152).

Schmemann’s journals are dotted with experiences of parishes, people and church life that re-inspire him, despite the idols he sees and fights against. After the Memorial Day celebrations at St Tikhon’s Monastery in May 1977 he wrote:

I thought again that I am at home in the Church, although so often in doubt about churchly details….As ailing as the Church is, as coarse, as worldly as church life has become; no matter how much the solely human, too human triumphs in the Church— only through the Church can one see the light of the Kingdom of God. But one can see that light and rejoice in it only inasmuch as one denies one’s self, liberates one’s self from pride, from narrowness and constraint (170).

In spite of its flaws, the miracle, says Schmemann, is that the historic Orthodox Church has preserved enough authentic life, especially in its liturgy, to be a source of wonder and joy. “Once more, I am convinced that I am quite alienated from Byzantium, and even hostile to it. What is surprising is that the Byzantine Liturgy basically withstood and endured this stuffiness and did not let it into the ‘Holy of Holies’”(213). But this also means that the Orthodox Church is leading two contradictory lives. “I have the feeling that in Orthodoxy (i.e., in Christianity) two religions coexist in many ways opposites of each other. The religion of Christ—fulfilled in the Church, and the religion of the Church, or simply religion” (172).

Constructive ways to address Schmemann’s critique?

If Fr Alexander is bitingly clear about the critique, what about his solutions? While he felt that the Orthodox Church in history had largely lost its ability to be a prophetic voice for Christ, how this might be restored to address specific issues even he could not say precisely. For example, he felt that the Orthodox tendency to turn all church history into sacred history was problematic but he felt torn between historians and pastors and could offer no solution.

There is something there that needs to be corrected, but how? I do not know. On one hand I agree with historians, since without a historical perspective, there would be false absolutisms. On the other hand, I agree with those of the pastoral group who tend to limit history for the sake of a real, live, existing Church (53).

On many questions he was ambivalent and unprepared to give solutions. “Everybody around me seems to know so clearly what is needed; they are all goal-oriented, while I always have the feeling that I really do not know what, where, why…” (52). Schmemann’s journals are full of unanswered questions that he poses to himself, and there is no clearly thought-out scheme to address the issues he raises. As Vigen Guroian reports, Schmemann was not sure whether the Orthodox Church would be prepared to handle the break up of secularism either in the West or in the East. At least on one occasion, “Schmemann wondered out loud whether the church would be prepared to answer the genuine religious needs of modern people in the breach as they searched for something to believe in and hope for after the collapse of secularism’s ‘religious’ hegemony.”[5]

What does emerge from Schmemann’s journals is a single test to judge all church life: faithfulness to Christ. Is this or that dimension of church activity—its parishes, dioceses, monasteries, seminaries, jurisdictions, patriarchates, missions, boards, departments, commissions and institutions—making known Christ, as He is encountered in the catholic fullness of the Orthodox faith? If not, it has lost its prophetic voice and is bound by the “‘shell’ of tradition.”

Prophecy must be about Christ; not about Jesus, not about religious revival, not about prayer and spirituality, but about Christ, as he is revealed in the genuinely Catholic, genuinely Orthodox faith…. Not return to the Fathers or Hellenism, but in a way, the overcoming of the whole ‘shell’ of tradition—the opening, the rediscovery of Truth itself, as given to us in Christ (165).

It’s uncertain what the implications of “overcoming the whole ‘shell’ of tradition” would look like to Fr Alexander. It would have been interesting to see—had he lived longer—if he would have had the ability to publicly verbalize more about what this meant to him. But in the end, what we are left with is his insightful diagnosis and a very broad treatment plan.