Meyendorff, John

(b. 17 February 1926 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France; d. 22 July 1992 in Montreal, Canada), Eastern Orthodox theologian, pastor, teacher, and ecumenical leader.

Meyendorff, whose given name was Jean, was one of three children of Russian emigré parents, barons of Baltic German aristocratic lineage who had fled the Bolshevik Revolution. His father, Theophile Meyendorff, was an artist who painted portraits and miniatures on ivory. His mother, Catherine Schidlovsky, assisted her husband by establishing contacts for him.

Meyendorff attended various schools in Paris and Biarritz, where the family spent most of World War II. He enrolled simultaneously at the Orthodox Theological Seminary of Saint Serge, in Paris, and at the Sorbonne, which awarded him the License ès-lettre degree and a Diplome d’Etudes Superieures degree, respectively. At Saint Serge he studied with luminaries of the Russian Orthodox diaspora, including Father Georges Florovsky. After graduating from Saint Serge in 1949, he taught there until 1959 and also worked for the Centre National de la Recherche Scien-tifique while preparing his doctorate for the Sorbonne. MeyendorfF married Marie Mojaysky on 26 January 1950; the couple had four children. He completed one year of military service, largely with the Train des Equipages, in October 1952.

In 1959 two of Meyendorff’s seminal works were published: Defense des saints hésychastes a two-volume French translation of a treatise, best known as the Triads, by the fourteenth-century Byzantine theologian Saint Gregory Palamas, and Meyendorff’s thesis, an analysis of Palamas titled Introduction à Vétude de Grégoire Palamas (1959, published as A Study of Gregory Palamas, 1964). Gregory, the archbishop of Thessalonica, was a defender of the Byzantine theological and cultural movement known as hesychasm. (The term hesychasm, whose varied meanings were explored by Meyendorff, describes inner silence and the practice of contemplative prayer. Practiced by the early Christian fathers Egypt, Palestine, and Asia Minor, he-sychasm has been described as a method for achieving spiritual concentration and the ultimate vision of God.) The Triads, in particular, have been called pioneering works. In them, Gregory distinguishes between the “essence” (which is unknowable) and “energies” (knowable) of God, thus providing a dogmatic basis for hesychasm in Orthodox theology, since God enters into a direct relationship with humankind through these energies.

Meyendorff further established his authority on the subject with a number of shorter studies published between 1953 and 1955, later collected in Byzantine Hesychasm: Historical, Theological, and Social Problems (1974). Meyen-dorff’s works, which were written in French, English, and Russian and published in eight languages, established his reputation as an internationally recognized Orthodox theologian. His other works include St. Gregoire Palamas et la Mystique Orthodoxe (1959; published in English as St. Gregory Palamas and Orthodox Spirituality, 1994), and L’Eglise orthodoxe hier et aujourd’hui (1960, published as The Orthodox Church: Its Past and Its Role in the World Today, 1962, 1995). Orthodoxie et Catholicité (1965, published as Orthodoxy and Catholicity, 1966), is a collection of essays devoted to problems of Christian unity, examining issues that have emerged between the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Christ in Eastern Christian Thought (1969), explores the Orthodox perspective on Christology. Byzantium and the Rise of Russia (1981), examines the relationship between Byzantium and the early history of Russia, and the history oí hesychasm as it relates to the authority of the ecumenical patriarchate in Constantinople (modern Istanbul). Other published works include Byzantine Theology (1974), and Marriage: An Orthodox Perspective (1975). Witness to the World (1987), collects editorials written for the Orthodox Church, a newspaper, between the late 1960s and early 1980s.

Ordained to the priesthood in February 1959 at the Cathedral of Saint Alexander Nevsky in Paris, in the fall of that year Meyendorff emigrated to the United States and joined the faculty of Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (then in New York City and subsequently in its suburbs) as a professor of church history and patristics. In doing so, he followed in the steps of Florovsky and Alexander Schmemann, prominent Orthodox theologians of the Russian diaspora. He later served as the seminary librarian, director of studies, and editor of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly and the Orthodox Church. In 1967 he became a professor of history at Fordham University in New York City, where he taught Byzantine history and patristics in the college and graduate school part-time until 1992. Meyendorff also taught courses at Columbia University and at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. In 1953 he became a cofounder and the first general secretary of Syndesmos, an international organization of Orthodox youth movements.

Meyendorff was instrumental in negotiations that resulted in the granting of autocephaly to the Metropolia in 1970. The Metropolia, comprised chiefly of Russians, Carpatho-Russians, and other linguistically or ethnically related Orthodox Christians, became the Orthodox Church in America (OCA); subsequently, the Romanian, Albanian, and Bulgarian jurisdictions joined the OCA. Autocephaly was necessary to regularize the canonical situation that had resulted from the break in relations with the Russian Orthodox Church after the Communist Revolution, when the formerly united Orthodox Church in the United States and Canada split into multiple ethnic jurisdictions, all under foreign patriarchates. Meyendorff represented the Metropolia (and later the OCA) on the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), serving as moderator of the WCC Faith and Order Commission from 1967 to 1975. It was during this period that Meyendorff was naturalized as a U.S. citizen.

Shortly after his arrival at Saint Vladimir’s, Meyendorff was tapped as a senior fellow by Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Research Center in Washington, D.C., commuting there biweekly until 1967; he remained a lifelong member of its Senior Fellows Committee. During a sabbatical year in 1978, he served as the acting director of studies, and also as a parish priest for a mission parish in Reston, Virginia. He served as a priest in Saint Vladimir’s seminary chapel and as a rector of Christ the Saviour Church in New York City. Meyendorff was named dean of Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in 1984, following the death of Schmemann, and continued in this position until shortly before his death. He was coeditor of Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century (1986), a volume in the World Spirituality series. His last published book, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D., appeared in 1989.

For years a target of official hostility by the former Soviet Union, the emergence of glasnost and perestroika in the mid1980s allowed Meyendorff to make regular visits to Russia, where he lectured at seminaries and established fruitful relations with church leaders, including the Russian patriarch Aleksy II. As the chairman for external affairs of the OCA, Meyendorff’s extensive knowledge of Western Orthodoxy and understanding of the perils faced by the Russian Church under communism won him the trust of many leaders in the Russian Church. Despite some opposition in Russia to his ecumenism, in 1991 Meyendorff was awarded the Order of Saint Vladimir by Aleksy II during the latter’s visit to the United States. He retired in 1992 in order to write books and translate some of his earlier work into Russian.

Meyendorff received honorary degrees from Notre Dame University, the General Theological Seminary in New York, and the Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) Theological Academy. He became a corresponding fellow of the British Academy in 1977. He regularly attended the International Congress of Byzantine Studies. An eloquent and passionate defender of Eastern Orthodoxy, as well as a gifted teacher and confessor, Meyendorff worked constantly for Orthodox jurisdictional unity in America, and saw the creation of the OCA as a step in that direction. He died of pancreatic cancer while vacationing in Labelle in Canada’s Laurentian Mountains. He is buried at Oakland Cemetery in suburban Yonkers, New York.

Saint Vladimir’s Seminary houses archives relating to Mey-endorff’s years as dean. See “Memories of Father John,” O.N.E. (Orthodox New England) (Oct. 1992), and “Protopresbyter John Meyendorff (1926-1992),” The Orthodox West (summer 1992), which includes an interview with Meyendorff on his retirement as dean of Saint Vladimir’s Seminary. A brief biographical sketch may be found in Gerald H. Anderson, ed., Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions (1998). Obituaries include Dimitri Obolen-sky, “John Meyendorff (1926-92),” Sobornost 15, no. 2 (1993): 44-51, and “In Memoriam: Fr. John Meyendorff, History Professor Dies at Age 66,” The Ram News (Fordham University) (1 Oct. 1992).

Jonathan G. Aretakis