The War on Whitsunday

May 11, 2008 By

pentecostToday is Pentecost, one of the three chief festivals in the Western Christian church year. It would be hard to imagine a complete lack of coverage of Christmas or Easter but Pentecost, the least commercial or secularized of the three days, doesn’t receive much media coverage at all. I don’t have any statistics to back this up but I think that media coverage is particularly sparse during those years, like 2008, that the High Holy Day of Mothers coincides with Pentecost.

Perhaps because Pentecost isn’t celebrated in the home as much as Christmas and Easter, reporters have trouble writing about the day which marks the birthday of the Christian Church. Of the media outlets that even mentioned Pentecost, also called Whitsunday, most simply published personal essays from religious adherents. The Times (U.K.) ran an interesting and thorough essay from the Right Rev. Dr Geoffrey Rowell, Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe. It’s probably one of the few times a piece was headlined, “The celestial fire that brings us new life and inspiration.”

The Columbia Missourian actually had a detailed explanation of the origins of Pentecost:

Although Pentecost is largely regarded as a Christian holiday, it has Jewish roots.

It was during the Jewish festival of Shavuot, which is associated with the spring harvest and marks the day Moses received the Torah from God on Mount Sinai — that the Holy Spirit came down to spread the good news about Jesus Christ.

According the second chapter of Acts in the Bible, as Jesus’ apostles celebrated Shavuot, the Holy Spirit appeared, marking the beginning of the Christian church’s mission.

The piece even mentioned the symbols, traditions and celebrations of Pentecost. The hymns it says are most popular are not ones I’m familiar with:

“Breathe on me breath of God,” “There’s a spirit in the air,” “Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me” and “O Breath of Life, come sweeping through us” are among the most popular.

I love Pentecost hymns but don’t recognize those, even after a YouTube perusal. (Today we sang one of my favorites, which we also sang at my wedding: “To God the Holy Spirit, Let Us Pray.”) I would quibble about what makes the cited hymns so popular but I won’t. I’m too excited that a reporter would think to include hymns in a story about popular liturgical celebrations.

Hank Arends, a retired religion reporter, writes a weekly column for Oregon’s Statesman-Journal. For this week, he wrote about the lack of attention paid to Pentecost:

The Rev. Don Shaw of John Knox Presbyterian Church in Keizer once did an informal survey among those who were not active church attendees.

His request: “Identify the three major Christian holidays.” Most easily named Christmas and Easter, with blank looks and answers like Thanksgiving and Lent for the third.

“Not one of those I questioned came up with Pentecost,” Shaw said. He pointed out that the church holy day falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter and “marks the birth of the church.

“So why is Pentecost unknown in our culture, while Christmas and Easter are widely acknowledged? I believe the answer lies in the very nature of Pentecost.”

The pastor said while Christmas and Easter remember the one time events of a birth and resurrection, Pentecost recalls the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon the early church and is “ongoing and continuous.”

Holly Andres, a staff writer for the LA Daily News, used Pentecost as a hook to talk about a local congregation with an interesting approach:

Furious winds and flames overhead are not what the parishioners at St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Rite Catholic Church would ever want to experience at their Chatsworth building near the brush-fire prone Santa Susana Mountains.

Except for this Sunday, when it might be thrilling for them to personally experience what Jesus’ Apostles did on Pentecost, which the parish will celebrate Sunday.

Pentecost, which comes 50 days after Easter, is the day Christians believe the Holy Spirit descended and brought spiritual gifts to the Apostles and then, ever since, to anyone who affirms to be a Christian.

“There was a sound like a rushing, mighty wind. There were tongues of flames over their heads. Then the Apostles were speaking in tongues,” said the Very Rev. Anthony F. Rasch from St. Mary. “Our Lord said he would send the Spirit to remind them (of his teachings) and lead them to all truth.”

The small congregation worships God in an historic cemetery chapel and uses the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. I love the way the reporter used the hook of a major church festival to discuss this liturgical congregation.

The three pieces I highlighted here were fine and good. Pentecost is difficult to cover since it has no secular or commercial angle. It is also not celebrated by Christians themselves as much as Christmas or Easter. But perhaps reporters — other than those in the Catholic press — can do a bit better on this in the future.

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Filed Under: Anglicanism, Catholicism, Godbeat, Journalism, Judaism, Mainline, Religion, Worship

Define “emerging,” give three examples

May 11, 2008 By

6a00d834520df269e200e54f20cef08834 800wiLong-time GetReligion readers may remember that I have been, and remain, very confused about the meaning of the term “emerging church” and how it relates to that other confusing term “evangelical.” There was even a time, two years ago or thereabouts, when GetReligion.org was named one of the top weblogs linked to the “emerging church” movement. That struck me as most strange. It still does.

Whatever the term means, it is supposed to be linked to a kind of post-evangelical embrace of the nuances of postmodern reality, in an attempt to fuse ancient mysteries with contemporary questions without the certainties of orthodoxy or something like that.

The key figure — in part since his church is so close to the D.C. Beltway — is the Rev. Brian McLaren, an author who has a stunning ability to write thousands and thousands of words without betraying anything specific about where he stands on centuries of Christian faith and doctrine and how they apply to modern issues. That’s where — for a premodern, Orthodox Christian guy like me — the frustrations begin. The last thing journalists need to be doing right now is tossing around another loaded, yet almost totally undefined, term. I mean, imagine trying to write an “emerging church” entry for the Associated Press Stylebook.

Truth be told, the “emerging” people and more than a few other Protestants are trying to run away from that “evangelical” buzz word. That’s part of what is going on with the “Evangelical Manifesto” story right now. Click here for one report on that scene.

Anyway, Rachel Zoll of the Associated Press recently sat down with McLaren for a Q&A that captures some of my frustration with all of this.

It’s common to ask if the “emerging church” represents a move to the theological left and the assumption is that it does.

But that’s an old question. I want to know if the leaders of this movement believe that they are making a move toward ancient faith traditions or simply another attempt by modern people, or postmodern people, to create their own version of the faith that tries to get back to what they believe the early church was all about. This is a recurring theme in American religion for 200 years or so.

Thus, Zoll writes:

Author Brian McLaren is among the most influential American religious thinkers of the last decade. His break with rigid orthodoxy and embrace of new worship styles is at the center of what is called the emerging church — a movement that has gone viral. The emerging church reclaims ancient practices and prayers and creates new ones, while re-examining Scripture to learn how modern-day Christians should live. …

Emerging thinkers contend that evangelicals and others have been too influenced by the broader culture in their reading of Scripture. The emerging church says this has marginalized important Bible teachings and hurt the faith.

See what I mean? This is modern worship that breaks with rigid orthodoxy of the past while reclaiming ancient practices to create a fusion for modernists. To me, that sounds like three parts modern with one part ancient and the postmodernists get to create all the equations that matter, when it comes to authority.

IMG 4499Later, in the interview, there is this exchange:

Q: On the theology behind the emerging church, you reject the idea that there’s an absolute truth. So what boundaries are there on theology that churches are teaching? Can any church just call itself an emerging church?

A: Obviously that’s a challenge. The flip side of that question is look at the Catholic Church: For all of its orthodoxy, it could have bishops covering up for molesting priests. And evangelicals, for all their claims of orthodoxy, can be barbaric to gay people and can blindly support a rush to war in Iraq and can be, as we speak, fomenting for war with Iran. … Obviously, I have a lot of critics and they often say, ‘You’re wanting to water down the Gospel to accommodate to post-modernity.’ I say, ‘No, I really don’t want to do that. But what I do want to do is acknowledge first the ways we’ve already watered down the Gospel to accommodate modernity.’ … I think the naivete of some of those critics is that they’re starting with a pure pristine understanding of the Gospel. It seems to me we’re all in danger of screwing up.

So, no absolute truths? I don’t see a clear answer there, especially not for a minister who is so concerned about social justice. Also, if you are seeking ancient roots, does that include the Nicene Creed? Are creedal absolutes tossed out, too?

You know where I am going with this, right? I think someone — a journalist perhaps — needs to ask this man three specific questions. Cue up the “tmatt trio,” again:

(1) Are the biblical accounts of the resurrection of Jesus accurate? Did this event really happen?

(2) Is salvation found through Jesus Christ, alone? Was Jesus being literal when he said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6)?

(3) Is sex outside of the Sacrament of Marriage a sin?

So read the Zoll interview, you journalists out there. What questions would you have wanted to ask?

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All those hillbillies are bigots

May 10, 2008 By

hillbillies 01 It’s no secret that Barack Obama fared poorly among white-working class voters in the Indiana primary. Why did he not win them over? Thomas M. DeFrank of The New York Daily News knows — Joe Six-Pack is a religious bigot:

While the case for Hillary Clinton to stay in the race is shakier than ever, one ugly reason for staying in could be found Tuesday amid the ruddy, sun-kissed Hoosiers who cheered her on to victory at the Indianapolis Speedway.

With Clinton posing alongside pioneering Indy speedster Sarah Fisher, there were almost no African-Americans to be seen. Many in the white, working-class crowd were simply not ready to back Barack Obama – for reasons that are disturbing.

“I’m kind of still up in the air between McCain and Hillary,” said Jason Jenkins, 32, who cited information from a hoax e-mail as a reason to spurn Obama.

“I’ll be honest with you. Barack scares the hell out of me,”he said. “He swore on the Koran.”

Obama did manage to pull in many white voters, but still encountered similar sentiments from a man who refused to shake his hand at a diner in Greenwood, Ind.

“I can’t stand him,” the man said. “He’s a Muslim. He’s not even pro-American as far as I’m concerned.”

Give DeFrank some credit. He talked to ordinary voters, and he got revealing quotes from them about religion. Neither is an easy task.

Yet it is outrageous for DeFrank to assert that the two men represent the sentiments of all white-working class voters. It’s nothing more than a smear. (DeFrank’s alternative explanations — that Joe Six Pack was mortified by the Rev. Wright or is a racist — are no less assuring).

DeFrank gives his readers no evidence that the two voters’ views are widespread. He offers no statistical or survey data. He did not talk to a representative sample of white-working class voters or even a small sample. He simply implies that the part stands for the whole.

This journalism is beneath a man of DeFrank’s prestige.

His story also inspires speculation about whether national-class reporters give, as one Hoosier Democrat sang, a damn about the Jackie Browns of this world.

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Why Oprah left and Obama stayed

May 8, 2008 By

obama and wrightNews reporters are starting to step up to the challenge of exploring the complicated issue of why a person joins a church. A pair of articles published this week explore both sides of the coin that is a person’s decision to attend the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.

On one side, Sunday’s The Chicago Tribune an article exploring “what led Obama to Wright’s church.” On the other side, Newsweek asks why afternoon television talk show star “Oprah Winfrey left Rev. Wright’s church.”

Here’s the heart of the Tribune‘s news analysis:

But in Chicago, the choice to attend Trinity for so long is a little less of a puzzle, given Obama and Wright’s shared history on the city’s South Side and the spiritual and cultural haven the church and pastor offered the aspiring politician.

Membership at Trinity is often taken as a progressive credential, a sign that a person is attuned to issues of social justice and equality and supportive of issues important to its gay and lesbian members.

“Rev. Wright is more sophisticated intellectually than many pastors,” said Kwame Raoul, the state senator who took Obama’s place in the Illinois legislature and who is a member at Trinity. “He’s well-read, he takes the theology seriously. He doesn’t just make quick references to the Bible but offers a very deep analysis and an application to current events.”

Shocking isn’t it, that Obama sought out a liberal/progressive church?

But his choice of church — as tmatt stressed the other day — shows a rather strategic decision. Obama intended to avoid what the article puts forward as the less intellectually “sophisticated” pastors in America’s black churches. As for what it takes to be considered sophisticated, the Tribune explains:

Theologically, Trinity has always stood apart from the constellation of black churches in Chicago, many of which offer a more socially conservative message. Wright questions the common sense of Scripture, ordains women, defends gay rights and preaches a theology of black liberation, which seeks to make the gospel relevant to the black experience.

Rev. Dwight Hopkins, a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School and a longtime member of Trinity, said Wright has always defied boundaries by cultivating an array of black religious traditions. Visitors on a typical Sunday morning might see and hear flavors of Pentecostal worship, prophetic preaching, political activism, self-empowerment and individual salvation and healing.

Those paragraphs are so packed with the need for explanation. What exactly does it mean for Wright, a very informed pastor theologically, to question “the common sense of Scripture?” Could there be a more vague way of stating what a person believes about what the Bible says? Since what a Christian believes about the Bible is pretty close to the heart of what one believes, vague undefined language is not good enough. A better explanation is needed.

As for Oprah, her decision to leave Wright’s church seems to be motivated by even more self-interest than the aspiring politician’s reasons for joining the church. Oprah, who has endorsed and campaigned for Obama, wanted to set up her own church:

According to two sources, Winfrey was never comfortable with the tone of Wright’s more incendiary sermons, which she knew had the power to damage her standing as America’s favorite daytime talk-show host. “Oprah is a businesswoman, first and foremost,” said one longtime friend, who requested anonymity when discussing Winfrey’s personal sentiments. “She’s always been aware that her audience is very mainstream, and doing anything to offend them just wouldn’t be smart. She’s been around black churches all her life, so Reverend Wright’s anger-filled message didn’t surprise her. But it just wasn’t what she was looking for in a church.” Oprah’s decision to distance herself came as a surprise to Wright, who told Christianity Today in 2002 that when he would “run into her socially … she would say, ‘Here’s my pastor!’ ” (Winfrey declined to comment. A Harpo Productions spokesperson would not confirm her reasons for leaving the church.)

But Winfrey also had spiritual reasons for the parting. In conversations at the time with a former business associate, who also asked for anonymity, Winfrey cited her fatigue with organized religion and a desire to be involved with a more inclusive ministry. In time, she found one: her own. “There is the Church of Oprah now,” said her longtime friend, with a laugh. “She has her own following.”

It’s great that journalists are starting to take a closer look at why Obama joined Wright’s church. It’s also interesting to compare him to why someone like Oprah would leave Wright’s church.

Obama’s motivation for joining seems pretty well established. He wanted to be apart of a liberal church that was active in helping others in inner city Chicago.

The next question to answer is whether American voters will hold this decision against him and see it as a flaw in his judgment. As Indiana demonstrated Tuesday night, the answer is anything but clear.

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A less than saintly story

May 6, 2008 By

pio2 In popular Catholic piety, Padre Pio Pietrelcina is still a revered figure, if not to the extent that he was for decades after World War II. The Italian Capuchin monk bore the stigmata on his hands, chest, and feet. He cured people. He made prophesies. So how will the intellectual Pope Benedict XVI treat the saint and his emotional followers?

Jeff Israely of Time, whose surname I misspelled previously, poses this question in his mini-profile of the popular monk. His answer is … it depends. Pope Benedict XVI may feel differently about Padre Pio than his predecessor:

Everyone knows what John Paul II felt about Padre Pio. But how can Benedict, the intellectually rigorous theologian, dubbed “the Pope of Reason,” sanction such widespread belief in faith-healing and emotional attachments to icons and relics?

The rest of the story is a balanced assessment of Benedict’s views about Padre Pio. But I thought it odd that Israely pulled a Descartes in the story: posing a dualism between the mind (Benedict’s intellect) and the body (the emotional attachment of ordinary Catholics). So did reader Tom Stanton:

the articles references to faith-healing and special powers are just ridiculous and demonstrate a clear inability or unwillingness to even discuss the theology behind the Communion of the Saints. I think it places a false dichotomy … trying to pit the relics of Augustine against the relics of Pio.

In other words, the mind-body dualism in the story says more about Time than it does Benedict. Israely’s story would have benefited from a one-sentence explanation of why his mental category was relevant.

I also think that the story should have explained briefly the process by which the church canonizes a believer. As is, the story leaves the impression that the process is subjective; it all depends on the pope. Now it’s well documented that secular factors (e.g. the institution or popular support behind the candidate) influence who becomes a saint. But the story fails to mention that in order to become a saint, the local diocese and Congregation for the Causes of Saints must determine that the person achieved heroic virtue and that two miracles were achieved through their intercession, although the pope does have discretion.

I know, a sentence or two about theology and church processes can be staid. But in this case, their absence marred an otherwise well-reported and interesting story.

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An old priest story

May 5, 2008 By

olderpriests It’s no secret that the U.S. Catholic church has comparatively fewer priests than it had 40 years ago. So how are Catholics responding? Melanie Lefkowitz of Newsday wrote about one response: an influx of older seminarians and priests entering the ministry.

Lefkowitz began her story in appropriate fashion. She profiled Robert Holz, a 40-year-old former accountant who typifies the trend:

Holz is among a vanguard of older priests-in-training who are energizing an institution that has faced stiff recruitment challenges for decades.

He’s one of nine men expected to be ordained this June, in what church officials say is among the largest classes of incoming priests in the nation. At its low nine years ago, the Rockville Centre Diocese ordained one priest.

Lefkowitz also put the priest shortage in the proper context. Using some of the best statistics on the problem I have seen, Lefkowitz noted not only the drop off today but also in the future:

New priests of any age are sorely needed. As the number of Catholics in the United States has risen, the number of priests has steadily dropped. According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, there are nearly 29,000 priests, about 20% fewer than 40 years ago.

But the worst is probably still ahead. The decline in the number of ordinations nationwide — 475 in 2007, compared with 994 in 1965 — and the aging of the current population of priests, whose median age is in the 50s, indicate that the priest shortage will grow more critical.

Lefkowitz adds that the number of seminarians in the Rockville diocese rose to 31 from a figure in the single digits. So how did the new bishop achieve this feat? Here is Lefkowitz’s answer:

The Sept. 11 attacks helped to inspire some of these men to enter the priesthood; for others, the balance swung after an illness or the loss of a parent. Many said they considered the priesthood as young children but were distracted, uncertain or afraid.

In other words, Lefkowitz did not answer the question. But the answer is surely a big part of the story. The number of seminarians more than tripled in seven years.

Did church officials tap into the spiritual and cultural unease that Holz felt? I bet that the ordinary, Bishop William Bishop, did. After all, the story notes that Murphy made “the priesthood a priority.”

Every reporter knows that the culture impact the church. Yet it’s also true that the church impacts the culture. Had this fact been incorporated, Lefkowitz’s story would have been better.

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A Methodism to the madness

May 3, 2008 By

um logo6It never ceases to amaze me how much media coverage of denominational politics we get for The Episcopal Church vis-a-vis all other denominations. It seems like every time an Episcopal clergyman sneezes, it’s worthy of massive coverage. But a major church body — the United Methodist Church — holds its quadrennial convention in Fort Worth over the last two weeks and we get nothing. Or at least something close to nothing.

I subscribe to every denominational press out there. The United Methodist News Service has been deluging its subscribers with stories. The press service for the church body is amazingly liberal, politically speaking. They ran a story this week attacking evangelical activists and traditionalists for caucusing with the also-evangelical and conservative African delegation. The conservative activists had supplied African delegates with cell phones to help coordinate efforts. A lengthy and completely biased story by the official news service of the Methodists three times accused the conservatives of racism when describing this coordinated political effort between conservative groups on two continents:

The giving of cell phones exclusively to people of color outside the United States raises some concerns about racial paternalism.

All week long I waited for some decent mainstream coverage of the larger Methodist story. Zip. Nada. I passed on the cell phone story to my husband who wrote it up for the National Review. It’s not mainstream media but it has more reportage on the General Conference than I’ve seen elsewhere. Herewith ends the shameless plug.

Well, the Methodists finally got around to voting on issues dealing with homosexuality so we’ve got a few (emphasis on few) stories trickling in.

Sam Hodges with the Dallas Morning News filed a report about a protest that took place after delegates voted to retain the church’s belief that the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching. After describing the protest — it was peaceful, legislative action stopped to permit the demonstration, 300 people sang a spiritual before leaving — he puts it in context:

Still, progressives were clearly disappointed that efforts to change the church’s stance on homosexuality failed Wednesday in voting by General Conference delegates.

“It was a terrible day,” said the Rev. Eric Folkerth, pastor of Northaven United Methodist Church in Dallas.

The General Conference is the UMC’s quadrennial assembly for deciding church law and policy. It’s scheduled to wrap up today.

Most UMC churches either quietly or openly welcome gay people as members, and Northaven is part of a network of congregations that’s lobbying on related issues, such as allowing non-celibate gay clergy.

But the UMC’s fundamental position that the practice of homosexuality conflicts with Christian teaching has stuck, despite strenuous efforts to remove it at one General Conference after another.

Hodges explains the African dynamic. He notes that the African delegation’s numbers and influence have grown due to significant growth there. However, he doesn’t explain that the American church is losing members at the same time. He also speaks with an African delegate and an American leader of conservative evangelical Methodist women who support the church’s stance.

One line above caught my eye. What does it mean that “most” UMC churches quietly or openly “welcome” gay people as members? What does it mean to welcome gay members, exactly? And, then, how do we know that most congregations do this? And what, exactly, are the other congregations doing? What does it mean to not “weclome” gay people? Seems like some explanation and quantification is in order.

Still, I’m just so happy to see some actual news coverage. Hodges has also been linked to UMC press accounts of the convention on the Morning News religion blog.

Terry Lee Goodrich of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote a brief story about a lesbian couple exchanging vows outside the General Conference this week. The Associated Press‘ Angela K. Brown also had a report:

More than 200 Methodists attended a lesbian couple’s commitment ceremony Friday in defiance of a vote to uphold a church law that says gay relationships are “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

It would be nice if denominations could get coverage even when there are no protests. But at least we’re finally getting some stories out there.

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Time-ly story on Dallas iconographer

May 2, 2008 By

icon003For the world’s 250 million or so Orthodox Christians, this is Bright Week. And if it is Bright Week, that means that last Sunday was Great and Holy Pascha. Which means that I was so busy this week, as my students wrapped up their work here at the Washington Journalism Center, that I didn’t offer a post on some of the Pascha coverage. I did, however, work in a Pascha column of my own for Scripps Howard.

But there was an interesting multi-media package in the Dallas Morning News about the work of iconographer Vladimir Grigorenko and the icons he is writing (you “write” an icon, not “paint” it) at St. Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral in the heart of Dallas. This has been an 8-year project.

Now, I happen to have met this man, because he is the godfather of Rod “friend of this blog” Dreher and I attended the Dreher family chrismation rite not that long ago.

I have also written a few icon stories in my time, several before I converted into the faith myself. It’s a rich and very complex subject, with lots of details to cherish and/or mess up. You have to capture the craft as well as the spirituality. Here is a key piece of Roy Appleton’s report:

Church leaders hired him to create icons for a wooden screen that stands in front of the altar. And in April 2000, he arrived with sketchy English and a fervent Christian faith to undertake what became a yearlong project. “I had in mind I would go back to Ukraine,” he says.

But once the screen was done — depicting Jesus, Mary, saints and disciples — the cathedral’s white walls and ceiling stood obviously bare. And Mr. Grigorenko was asked to continue his work and take on a canvas of plastered drywall. He figured the challenge would take two years or so.

Since then, the wiry artist has been at it six days a week, eight to 10 hours a day, grinding pigment stones, producing colors, climbing scaffolds and glorifying his Dallas church with Christian scenes and figures.

“The most important concept here was to represent the story of Christ,” he says, standing beneath his artistic vision, his bearded face void of emotion.

Now there is a problem here, one that may be linked to that phrase “his bearded face void of emotion.” You see, the people of lands in and around Russia have a stoic quality to them, but there is deep, deep emotion in there. That gets poured into worship, art, literature and many other things. It is a different style and, frankly, iconography is a good fit.

I am having trouble picturing Grigorenko dealing with this topic without getting into the other side of the work — the rituals of prayer and fasting that go with this calling. It is more than art.

Was he silent? Was he asked?

And, finally, there is one other amazing detail in this human drama that really needed to be included — but didn’t make the cut.

putinIt would have been easy to find, since it ran — on the record — in a Dallas Morning News weblog. This Dreher post was called “The Icon that Wasn’t” and here is the crucial part:

Not long ago, Vladimir Grigorenko, the iconographer at St. Seraphim’s Orthodox Cathedral in Oak Lawn, received a call from an editor at Time. Would Mr. Grigorenko create an icon for the magazine? The image Time wanted was not one of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary or a saint. Time wanted an icon of Russian President Vladimir Putin. This was a problem. In Orthodox Christianity, icons are not mere images of holy figures and events. Icons are revered as sacred objects, as windows into the world of the divine.

Mr. Grigorenko, who converted to Christianity in his native Ukraine during the last days of the Soviet Union, instantly refused. When he told this story to an American friend, the startled American responded that Time was likely to name Vladimir Putin its Person of the Year.

“If that happens,” the American said, “you just gave up the chance to illustrate the cover of the year’s most important issue of one of the world’s most important magazines. You would have been famous. You might have made a lot of money.”

“What’s that to me?” Mr. Grigorenko said dismissively. Holy things are for the holy.

Amazing, right? That detail may not be the lede in a Pascha story. But there is no way in the world to leave it out. There is more to this story than art.

Illustrations: For more of these glorious icons by Vladimir Grigorenko, click here.

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