Jaroslav Jan Pelikan (December 17, 1923–May 13, 2006) was a scholar in the history of Christianity

History of Christianity

The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, its followers and the Church with its various denominations, from the first century to the present. Christianity was founded in the 1st century by the followers of Jesus of Nazareth who they believed to be the Christ or chosen one of God...

, Christian theology

Christian theology

- Divisions of Christian theology :There are many methods of categorizing different approaches to Christian theology. For a historical analysis, see the main article on the History of Christian theology.- Sub-disciplines :...

 and medieval intellectual history.

Early years

Pelikan was born in Akron, Ohio

Akron, Ohio

Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...

, to a Slovak father and mother, Jaroslav Jan Pelikan Sr. and Anna Buzekova Pelikan. His father was pastor of Trinity Slovak Lutheran

Lutheranism

Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...

 Church in Chicago, Illinois, and his paternal grandfather a bishop of the Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches then known as the Slovak Lutheran Church in America.

According to family members, Pelikan's mother taught him to use a typewriter when he was three years old, as he could not yet hold a pen properly but wanted to write. A polyglot

Multilingualism

Multilingualism is the act of using, or promoting the use of, multiple languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. Multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of...

, Pelikan's facility with languages may be traced to his multilingual childhood and early training. That linguistic facility was to serve him in the career he ultimately chose (after contemplating becoming a concert pianist)--as a historian of Christian doctrine. He did not confine his studies to Roman Catholic and Protestant theological history, but also embraced that of the Christian East.

In 1946 when he was 22, he earned both a seminary degree from Concordia Seminary

Concordia Seminary

Concordia Seminary is located in Clayton, Missouri, an inner-ring suburb on the western border of St. Louis, Missouri. The institution's primary mission is to train pastors, deaconesses, missionaries, chaplains, and church leaders for the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod . The current president of...

 in Saint Louis, Missouri and a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

.

Writings and interviews

Pelikan wrote more than 30 books, the five-volume The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (1971–1989). Some of his later works attained crossover appeal, reaching beyond the scholarly sphere into the general reading public (notably, Mary Through the Centuries, Jesus Through the Centuries and Whose Bible Is It?).

His 1984 book The Vindication of Tradition gave rise to an often quoted one liner. In an interview in U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...

 (July 26, 1989), he said: "Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Tradition lives in conversation with the past, while remembering where we are and when we are and that it is we who have to decide. Traditionalism supposes that nothing should ever be done for the first time, so all that is needed to solve any problem is to arrive at the supposedly unanimous testimony of this homogenized tradition."

Yale University professor

He joined Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in 1962 as the Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History and in 1972 was named Sterling Professor of History, a position he held until achieving emeritus

Emeritus

Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...

 status in 1996. He served as acting dean and then dean of the Graduate School from 1973–78 and was the William Clyde DeVane Lecturer 1984-86 and again in the fall of 1995. Awards include the Graduate School's 1979 Wilbur Cross Medal and the Medieval Academy of America's 1985 Haskins Medal.

While at Yale, Pelikan won a contest sponsored by Field & Stream magazine for Ed Zern's column "Exit Laughing" to translate the motto of the Madison Avenue Rod, Gun, Bloody Mary & Labrador Retriever Benevolent Association ("Keep your powder, your trout flies and your martinis dry") into Latin. Pelikan's winning entry mentioned the martini first, but Pelikan explained that it seemed no less than fitting to have the apéritif come first. His winning entry:

Semper siccandae sunt: potio

Pulvis, et pelliculatio.

Pelikan was appointed to numerous leadership positions in American intellectual life. He was the president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...

. He was editor of the religion section of Encyclopædia Britannica

Encyclopædia Britannica

The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...

, and in 1980 he founded the Council of Scholars at the Library of Congress.

In 1983 the National Endowment for the Humanities

National Endowment for the Humanities

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...

 selected him to deliver the 12th annual Jefferson Lecture

Jefferson Lecture

The Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities is an honorary lecture series established in 1972 by the National Endowment for the Humanities . According to the NEH, the Lecture is "the highest honor the federal government confers for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities."-History of...

, the highest honor conferred by the federal government for outstanding achievement in the humanities

Humanities

The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

. Pelikan's lecture became the basis for his book The Vindication of Tradition.

Pelikan gave the 1992–1993 Gifford lectures

Gifford Lectures

The Gifford Lectures were established by the will of Adam Lord Gifford . They were established to "promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term — in other words, the knowledge of God." The term natural theology as used by Gifford means theology supported...

 at the University of Aberdeen

University of Aberdeen

The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...

, which were published as the book Christianity and Classical Culture.

President Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 appointed Professor Pelikan to serve on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Dr. Pelikan received honorary degrees from 42 universities all over the world. At the age of 80, he was appointed scholarly director for the “Institutions of Democracy Project” at the Annenberg Foundation

Annenberg Foundation

The Annenberg Foundation is a private foundation that provides funding and support to non-profit organizations in the United States and around the world...

.

In 2004, having received the John W. Kluge Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Human Sciences

Kluge Prize

The John W. Kluge Prize for the Study of Humanity is awarded for lifetime achievement in the humanistic and social sciences to celebrate the importance of the Intellectual Arts for the public interest.-Overview:...

, an honor he shared with the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur

Paul Ricoeur

Paul Ricœur was a French philosopher best known for combining phenomenological description with hermeneutic interpretation...

, Pelikan donated his award ($500,000) to Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, of which he was a trustee

Trustee

Trustee is a legal term which, in its broadest sense, can refer to any person who holds property, authority, or a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another...

. At the ceremony, he quoted a leitmotif passage from Goethe that had moved him all his life: "Was du ererbt von deinen Vaetern hast, Erwirb es um es zu besitzen" -- "Take what you have inherited from your fathers and work to make it your own."

Lutheran pastor to Orthodox layman

For most of his life Pelikan was a Lutheran and was an ordained pastor in that tradition. In 1998, however, he and his wife Sylvia were received into the Orthodox Church in America

Orthodox Church in America

The Orthodox Church in America is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in North America. Its primate is Metropolitan Jonah , who was elected on November 12, 2008, and was formally installed on December 28, 2008...

 in St Vladimir's Seminary Chapel. Members of Pelikan's family remember him saying that he had not as much converted to Orthodoxy as "returned to it, peeling back the layers of my own belief to reveal the Orthodoxy that was always there." Delighted with this turn of phrase, Dad used it (or close variants) several times among family and friends, including during a visit to St. Vladimir's

Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary

Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary is an Orthodox Christian seminary in Crestwood, New York, in the United States. Although it is under the omophorion of the Metropolitan of the Orthodox Church in America, it is a pan-Orthodox institution, providing theological education to students...

 for Divine Liturgy

Divine Liturgy

Divine Liturgy is the common term for the Eucharistic service of the Byzantine tradition of Christian liturgy. As such, it is used in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. Armenian Christians, both of the Armenian Apostolic Church and of the Armenian Catholic Church, use the same term...

, the "last before his death."

Pelikan died on May 13, 2006, at his home in Hamden, Connecticut

Hamden, Connecticut

Hamden is a town in New Haven County, Connecticut, United States. The town's nickname is "The Land of the Sleeping Giant." Hamden is home to Quinnipiac University. The population was 58,180 according to the Census Bureau's 2005 estimates...

, at the age of 82, after a seventeen month battle with lung cancer. He was interred at Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, Connecticut, on May 17, 2006. Pelikan was honored by a memorial service in Yale's Battell Chapel

Battell Chapel

Battell Chapel at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was built in 1874-76 as a Civil War memorial, with funds donated by Joseph Battell and others of his family. The chapel was designed by Russell Sturgis, Jr. in High Victorian Gothic style of rough brown sandstone. It was the third of...

 on October 10, 2006, with speeches by distinguished scholars and musical performances by cellist Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, virtuoso, and orchestral composer. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011...

 and the Yale Russian Chorus

Yale Russian Chorus

The Yale Russian Chorus is a tenor-bass choral ensemble at Yale University, established in 1953 by Denis Mickiewicz, a student at the Yale Music School, and George Litton, president of the Yale Russian Club. The group sings a variety of secular and sacred Slavic choral pieces, from the 12th century...

.

Selected bibliography

• Martin Luther's works (1955–1969) multiple volumes
• The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (1959)
• The Light of the World: A Basic Image in Early Christian Thought (1962) Harper and Brothers, no ISBN
• The Finality of Jesus Christ in an Age of Universal History: a Dilemma of the Third Century (1966)
• Development of Christian Doctrine: Some Historical Prolegomena (1969)
• The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, 5 vols. (1973–1990). Chicago: University of Chicago Press
  • Volume 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition 100–600 (1973) ISBN 0-226-65371-4
  • Volume 2: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom 600–1700 (1974) ISBN 0-226-65373-0
  • Volume 3: The Growth of Medieval Theology 600–1300 (1978) ISBN 0-226-65375-7
  • Volume 4: Reformation of Church and Dogma 1300–1700 (1984) ISBN 0-226-65377-3
  • Volume 5: Christian Doctrine and Modern Culture since 1700 (1990) ISBN 0-226-65380-3
• Jesus Through the Centuries: His Place in the History of Culture (1985) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-07987-7
• The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century (Forward) (1985) ISBN 0-8070-1301-3
• Bach Among the Theologians (1986), Philadelphia: Fortress Press, ISBN 0-8006-0792-9
• The Vindication of Tradition: The 1983 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities (1986) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0300036388.
• Sacred Writings: Buddhism – The Dhammapada (1987) Book of the Month Club, no ISBN
• The Melody of Theology: A Philosophical Dictionary (1988) ISBN 0-674-56472-3
• The Excellent Empire: The Fall of Rome and the Triumph of the Church (1989)
• Confessor Between East and West: A Portrait of Ukrainian Cardinal Josyf Slipyj (1990), ISBN 0-802-83672-0
• The World Treasury of Modern Religious Thought (1990), editor, hardcover: ISBN 0-316-69770-2, paperback: no ISBN issued
• The Idea of the University: A Reexamination (1992) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-05834-9
• Sacred Writings: Hinduism – The Rig Veda (1992) Book of the Month Club, no ISBN
• Sacred Writings: Islam – The Qur'an (1992) editor, Book of the Month Club, no ISBN, in English with Arabic sub-text
• Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism (1993) Gifford lectures
  Gifford Lectures
  The Gifford Lectures were established by the will of Adam Lord Gifford . They were established to "promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of the term — in other words, the knowledge of God." The term natural theology as used by Gifford means theology supported...
  
   at Aberdeen, Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-06255-9
• Faust the Theologian (1995) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-07064-0
• Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture (1996) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-07661-4
• Fools for Christ: Essays on the True, the Good, and the Beautiful (1995) Fortress Press, (2001) Wipf & Stock ISBN 978-1579108021
• The Illustrated Jesus Through the Centuries (1997) Yale U. Press ISBN 0300072686
• What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem?: Timaeus and Genesis in Counterpoint (1998) Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures, University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0-472-10807-7
• Divine Rhetoric: The Sermon on the Mount As Message and As Model in Augustine, Chrysostom, and Luther (2000) St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, ISBN 0-88141-214-7
• Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition (2003) Yale U. Press, ISBN 0-300-09388-8
• Interpreting the Bible and the Constitution (2004) Yale U. Press ISBN 0-300-10267-4
• Whose Bible Is It? A History of the Scriptures Through the Ages (2005) ISBN 0-670-03385-5
• Mary: Images Of The Mother Of Jesus In Jewish And Christian Perspective (2005)
• Acts (2006) Brazos Press, ISBN 1-58743-094-0. A theological Bible commentary

External links

• Article in the Lutheran Magazine
• Announcement of Kluge Award
• Jaroslav Pelikan: The living legend in our midst. Article Rev John H. Erickson
• In Memory of Jaroslav Pelikan - A Homily Delivered at His Funeral Vigil Service by Rev John H. Erickson
• Jaroslav Pelikan - Writings on the Web
• The Cresset - Jaroslav Pelikan Archive