Difference between revisions of "Alexander (Golitzin) of Dallas, the South and the Bulgarian Diocese"

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[[Image:Fr.-Golitzin-1.jpg|thumb|His Grace, Bishop Alexander (Golitzin)|200px]]
 
[[Image:Fr.-Golitzin-1.jpg|thumb|His Grace, Bishop Alexander (Golitzin)|200px]]
His Grace, the Right Reverend '''Alexander''' (secular name '''Alexander George Golitzin''', {{lang-ru|Александр Юрьевич Голицын}}) is of bishop of [[Diocese of the South (OCA)|Dallas, the South]] and the [[Bulgarian Diocese (OCA)|Bulgarian Diocese]] of the [[Orthodox Church in America]].
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His Grace, the Right Reverend '''Alexander (Golitzin)''' (secular name '''Alexander George Golitzin''', {{lang-ru|Александр Юрьевич Голицын}}) is bishop-elect of the [[Diocese of the South (OCA)|Dallas, the South]] and ruling bishop of the [[Bulgarian Diocese (OCA)|Bulgarian Diocese]] of the [[Orthodox Church in America]].
  
 
He has also served as ''locum tenens'' of the [[Diocese of Washington (OCA)|Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.]] and the [[Diocese of the Midwest (OCA)|Diocese of the Midwest]].
 
He has also served as ''locum tenens'' of the [[Diocese of Washington (OCA)|Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.]] and the [[Diocese of the Midwest (OCA)|Diocese of the Midwest]].

Revision as of 18:00, April 6, 2016

His Grace, Bishop Alexander (Golitzin)

His Grace, the Right Reverend Alexander (Golitzin) (secular name Alexander George Golitzin, Russian: Александр Юрьевич Голицын) is bishop-elect of the Dallas, the South and ruling bishop of the Bulgarian Diocese of the Orthodox Church in America.

He has also served as locum tenens of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. and the Diocese of the Midwest.

Bishop Alexander is the second ruling bishop of the OCA's Bulgarian Diocese. He succeeded His Eminence, the late Archbishop Kyrill (Yonchev), who had overseen the diocese from 1964 to 2007.

On March 29, 2016, Bp. Alexander was elected to fill the vacant See of Dallas and the South, succeeding His Eminence, the late Dmitri (Royster).

Life

A descendant of the Golitzin princely family, Alexander George Golitzin was born on May 27, 1948 in Burbank, California. He studied at the University of California at Berkeley, where he received the BA in English in 1970, before earning the M.Div. at St. Vladimir's Seminary in Crestwood, New York, in 1973. The future Bishop spent seven years in doctoral studies at Oxford University, where he earned the D.Phil. in Theology in 1980. His dissertation on Dionysius the Areopagite was written under the direction of Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia. In the final years of his doctoral studies, he spent a year at Simonos Petras Monastery on Mount Athos, where he became a disciple of Elder Aimilianos. After his doctoral studies he returned to the United States, where he was ordained to the diaconate on January 23, 1982 and to the priesthood on February 26, 1984. Father Alexander received the monastic tonsure from Elder Aimilianos at Simonos Petras in 1986. He was later elevated to the rank of Igumen and, on the day of his election to the episcopate, to the rank of Archimandrite.

Teaching and Scholarship

Bishop Alexander is a noted scholar. He contributed, together with Fr. Michael Prokurat, to the establishment of an Orthodox scholarly presence in Berkeley, CA (now the Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute). From 1989 until 2012 he taught Patristics at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI, as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and eventually full Professor. His research concerns the beginnings of Christian mystical and ascetical traditions, and their subsequent developments in the Greek- and Syriac-speaking East, with a particular interest in continuities and parallels with, respectively, Second Temple Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism. His work on the Christian ascetical and mystical tradition attracted a number of doctoral students from Russia, Romania, and Serbia, with whom he began the scholarly project known as the Theophaneia School[1].

Pastoral Work

While in California, Father Alexander was active in missionary work. In Milwaukee, he assisted the Orthodox Christian Fellowship at Marquette University, and was attached to Ss. Cyril & Methodius Orthodox Church. He preached, taught, heard confessions, and assisted in the liturgical and pastoral work. Moreover, for several years he also served major services at the St. John Chrysostom monastery in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.

Igumen Alexander was nominated for the vacant See of Toledo and the Bulgarian Diocese at the Fifth Diocesan Congress-Sobor held in Toledo, OH, on Saturday, July 9, 2011. On October 4, 2011, the members of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America canonically elected Father Alexander to the vacant see, also raising him to the rank of archimandrite. On Saturday, May 5, 2012, he was consecrated to the episcopacy during a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy at Saint George Orthodox Cathedral in Rossford, OH.

In his address prior to the ordination, Bishop-elect Alexander said:

When standing before the holy altar at the anaphora, the bishop images forth the one and unique High Priest—Christ—Who acts through His celebrant. While it is true that our Lord Jesus is true God and true King, it is also true that He did not come to us, His creatures, with the pomp and splendor of the King, attended by the legions of heaven, but rather in humility He emptied Himself and was found in the likeness of a servant. These are very different images: the first set revelatory of the splendor of heaven, and the second of the humility, long-suffering, and charity of our Lord’s life and ministry. … I must keep this difference firmly in mind throughout my life as bishop, by which I mean the glory of the liturgical iconography should have no place in my office and day-to-day demeanor. My actions, my patterns of speech, my service in short, is to be determined by the example given us by God the Word Himself. [2]

On July 9, 2012, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America named the newly-consecrated Bishop Alexander as locum tenens of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., a role he discharged until November 13 of the same year. He was later appointed by the Holy Synod locum tenens of the Diocese of the Midwest, serving in this capacity from April 15, 2013, to December 27, 2014.

Public Lectures

Writings

Books:

  • Mistagogia: Experienta lui Dumnezeu in Ortodoxie. Sibiu, 1998. [in Romanian]
  • The Living Witness of the Holy Mountain: Contemporary Voice from Mount Athos. South Canaan, 1996. (ISBN 978-1878997487)
  • St Symeon the New Theologian on the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, 3. vols. Crestwood, 1995-1997. (ISBN 978-0-881-41231-4)
  • The Historical Dictionary of the Orthodox Church, with Michael Prokurat and Michael Peterson. Lanham, 1996. (ISBN 978-0810830813)
  • Et introibo ad altare dei: The Mystagogy of Dionysius Areopagita. Thessalonika, 1994.
  • Mystagogy: A Monastic Reading of Dionysius Areopagita. Kalamazoo, 2013. (ISBN 978-0879072506)

Articles: Several articles can be viewed at [3]

  • "Liturgy and Mysticism: The Experience of God in Eastern Orthodox Christianity" (part 1)
  • "Liturgy and Mysticism: The Experience of God in Eastern Orthodox Christianity" (part 2).
  • Review of Hilarion Alfeyev, The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian (Cistercian Publications, 2000), published in St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 46 (2002): 285-290.
  • "The Mysticism of Dionysius Areopagita: Platonist or Christian?" Mystics Quarterly 19 (1993): 98-114.
  • "Hierarchy Versus Anarchy: Dionysius Areopagita, Symeon the New Theologian, Nicetas Stethatos, and Their Common Roots in the Ascetical Tradition," St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 38 (1994): 131-179.
  • "Anathema! Some Historical Perspectives on the Athonite Statement of May 1995," St. Nersess Theological Review 3 (1998): 103-117
  • "'A Contemplative and a Liturgist': Father Georges Florovsky on the Corpus Dionysiacum," St Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 43 (1999): 131-161.
  • "Revisiting the 'Sudden': Epistle III in the Corpus Dionysiacum," Studia Patristica 37 (2001): 482-491.
  • "Many Lamps Are Lightened From the One: Paradigms of the Transformational Vision in the Macarian Homilies," Vigiliae christianae 55 (2001): 281-298 [with Andrei Orlov]
  • "Earthly Angels and Heavenly Men: The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Nicetas Stethatos, and the Tradition of Interiorized Apocalyptic in Eastern Christian Ascetical and Mystical Literature," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 55 (2001): 125-153.
  • "Adam, Eve, and Seth: Pneumatological Reflections On An Unusual Image in Gregory of Nanzianus's Fifth Theological Oration," Anglican Theological Review 83 (2001): 537-546.
  • "Dionysius Areopagites in the Works of Saint Gregory Palamas: On the Question of a 'Christological Corrective' and Related Matters," Saint Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 46 (2002): 163-90.
  • "The Demons Suggest an Illusion of God's Glory in a Form: Controversy Over the Divine Body and Vision of Glory in Some Late Fourth, Early Fifth Century Monastic Literature," Studia Monastica 44 (2002): 13-44.
  • "A Testimony to Christianity as Transfiguration: The Macarian Homilies and Orthodox Spirituality," Orthodox and Wesleyan Spirituality (ed. S. T. Kimbrough; Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2002), 129–156
  • "Dionysius Areopagita: A Christian Mysticism?" Pro Ecclesia 12 (2003): 161-212.
  • "The Place of the Presence of God: Aphrahat of Persia’s Portrait of the Christian Holy Man," ΣΥΝΑΞΙΣ ΕΥΧΑΡΙΣΤΙΑΣ: Studies in Honor of Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonos Petras, Mount Athos (Athens: Indiktos, 2003), 391-447.
  • "The Image and Glory of God in Jacob of Serug's Homily, On That Chariot That Ezekiel the Prophet Saw," Saint Vladimir's Theological Quarterly 46 (2003): 323-364.
  • "'Suddenly, Christ': The Place of Negative Theology in the Mystagogy of Dionysius Areopagites," Mystics: Presence and Aporia (ed. Michael Kessler and Christian Shepherd; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 8-37.
  • "Christian Mysticism over Two Millennia," The Theophaneia School: Jewish Roots of Christian Mysticism (ed. Andrei Orlov and Basil Lurie; St. Petersburg: Byzantino-rossica, 2007), 17–33.
  • "The Vision of God and the Form of Glory: More Reflections on the Anthropomorphite Controversy of AD 399," Abba: The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West: FS Kallistos Ware (SVS Press, 2007): 273-297.
  • "Il corpo di Cristo: Simeone il Nuovo Teologo sulla vita spirituale e la chiesa gerarchica," Simeone il Nuovo Teologo e il monachesimo a Costantinopoli (Qiqajon: Monastero di Bose, 2003), 255-288. (ENGLISH: "The Body of Christ: Saint Symeon the New Theologian on Spiritual Life and the Hierarchical Church," The Theophaneia School: Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism (Saint Petersburg: Byzantinorossica, 2007), 106-127)
  • "Theophaneia: Forum on the Jewish Roots of Orthodox Spirituality," The Theophaneia School: Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism (Saint Petersburg: Byzantinorossica, 2007), xvii-xx.
  • "Heavenly Mysteries: Themes from Apocalyptic Literature in the Macarian Homilies and Selected Other Fourth Century Ascetical Writers," Apocalyptic Themes in Early Christianity (ed. Robert Daly; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 174–192
  • "Making the Inside like the Outside: Toward a Monastic Sitz im Leben for the Syriac Apocalypse of Daniel," To Train His Soul in Books: Syriac Asceticism in Early Christianity (ed. Robin Darling Young and Monica J. Blanchard; CUA Press, 2011). An earlier version of this article is available [4].


Succession box:
Alexander (Golitzin) of Dallas, the South and the Bulgarian Diocese
Preceded by:
Kyrill (Yonchev)
Bishop of Toledo and the Bulgarian Diocese
(OCA)

2012-present
Succeeded by:
Preceded by:
Dmitri (Royster)
Bishop of Dallas and the South (elect)
(OCA)

2016-present
Succeeded by:
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External links