The Father John VonHolzhausen Annual Lecture
Sunday,
May 1st 2011, 12:30pm
St
Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church
8
Inman St, Central Square
Cambridge,
MA
Father
Michael Plekon
"Hidden Holiness: The holy Life where you least expect
it."
In Hidden Holiness, Michael Plekon challenges
us to examine the concept of holiness. He argues that both Orthodox and
Catholic churches understand saints to be individuals whose lives and deeds are
unusual, extraordinary, or miraculous. Such a requirement for sainthood undermines,
in his view, one of the basic messages of Christianity: that all people are
called to holiness. Instead of
focusing on the ecclesiastical process of recognizing saints, Plekon explores a
more ordinary and less noticeable “hidden” holiness, one founded on the calling
of all to be prophets and priests and witnesses to the Gospel. As Rowan
Williams has insisted, people of faith need to find God’s work in their
culture and daily lives. With that in mind, Plekon identifies a fascinatingly
diverse group of faithful who exemplify an everyday sanctity, as well as the
tools they have used to enact their faith. A generous and expansive treatment
of the holy life, accessibly written for all readers, Plekon’s book is sure to
inspire us to recognize and celebrate the holiness hidden in the ordinary lives
of those around us.
Michael Plekon's areas of specialization include the
social history of American religious traditions and communities, social theory
and its connections with theology, the social and theological thought of Søren
Kierkegaard, contemporary Eastern Orthodox theology and theologians of the
Russian emigration and saints, canonized or not, in our time. He received his
A.B. from The Catholic University of America and his M.A. and Ph.D from Rutgers
University where he was a student of Peter L. Berger. He continues to edit and
translate important studies and biographies for publication here and is a
reviewer for several other journals. He is a priest of the Orthodox Church in
America, assisting at St. Gregory the Theologian Church in Wappingers Falls,
NY.