This is the book you want to give your Protestant and Catholic friends. It will detail for them just what Lenten Liturgical Worship is? (page 86, 87) and Looking for the Spiritual behind the formal (page 88) What Lent is & how it works? (Page 88) Along with What Christian Fasting is and is not, How to fast and the different kinds of fasting? (Pages 97, 98, 99)

Fr. Alexander's exposition of the mindset of Lent is indispensable. He demonstrates clearly how Lent is more than following rules and giving up "the good stuff" until we can indulge oursleves at Pascha. Lent is, rather, a time to rediscover who we are and why we are here. I recommend any serious Christian reread this book every year when Lent approaches.

Fr. Alexander knows his triodion (i.e. the liturgical book of Great Lent and Easter in the orthodox church). I fully agree with my co-reviewers that his book is indispensable for people who want to deal with the orthodox practice of great lent. Fr. Alexander as a passionate liturgical theologist takes us by the hand and helps us exploring the beauty and richness of this most wonderful of all liturgical books of the eastern church. lent - the way the tridion tells about it - is less a "what to do when and how" it is a spiritual journey from the acknowlegment of how far from God we live our lives to the mystery of the risen Lord who reaches out to us.
When singing the triodion I often have the impression that this book an the journey it takes us to are a microcosmos of the christian religion. Fr. Alexander's unique gift is the way he manages to show us it's beauty and the hope that lies within it.

I am sure that when Schmemann wrote this book he could not have anticipated how utterly beautiful it would be. Superlatives should always be used sparingly, but when it comes to this masterpiece, no superlatives are sufficient. What makes this work different from all of Schmemann's other works on the Eucharist is that it breathes love for God and for the summit of Christian worship, the Eucharist. Every line is filled with breathtaking insights and love for God. Schmemann cuts a whole through "Western" preoccupation with the moment of consecration, and restores a united vision of this central act which takes us to heaven to eat and drink with Christ in his Kingdom. This is probably the finest book I have ever read.

Fr. Schmemann has written what is simply the best book on the Eucharist I have ever read. Fr. Schmemann writes with clarity and insight about the Eucharist, not as an abstract phenomenon but from a first concern with liturgy as a whole, as the lived experience of the Church. Fr. Schmemann explicates how the Eucharist symbolizes, i.e. reveals, manifests, and communicates Christ and His Kingdom. Fr. Schmemann demonstrates that the real dynamism of the Eucharist and the Liturgy is the connecting of the sacrament with the Church, the world and the Kingdom. The Church, through the activity of the Holy Spirit in its Liturgy and life, brings the world into the Kingdom of God. In the Eucharist, all that is human can be transfigured by grace so that all of creation may be consummated in God. The strength of Fr. Schmemann's book is its clarity- clarity of style and more importantly his clarity of expression of his experience of God and God's Kingdom that is offered to us in the Eucharist. This book is alive.
As a side note, Fr. Schmemann's recently published Journals are written while he was writing this book. It is interesting to read of his struggles and insights as a companion to The Eucharist.

This book should be given as a present to all expecting mothers! It is an excellent guide for parents. It shows how to bring children up in the Church from their very conception! It has a good discussion of those difficult adolescent years and ways of tackling all those difficult questions and problems. It has a thorough awareness of the situation today (the influence of TV, modern music etc), yet embodies the teaching of the Church as expressed in the works of Starets Sophrony the disciple of St. Silouan, the Elder of the monastery which first published this book. Originally a series of talks given at the monastery in England it is slowly becoming a classic in contemporary child care.

This book is an excellent introduction (along with St. Nicholas Cabasilas' classic text of the thirteenth century) to Orthodox life. Specifically, this book makes clear why the Orthodox start with worship, not with a few postulates (as in Roman Catholicism/Protestantism); it also shows why the Orthodox classically do not believe that there are "seven sacraments": everything the Church does is sacred! A great book for beginners or the more advanced reader about True Christianity: the Faith of the Eight Councils!

The back cover states: "This commentary of the Lord's Prayer has been compiled from a series of broadcasts made by Fr. Alexander Schmemann on Radio Liberty to listeners in the former Soviet Union. Because this single short prayer of Christ has everything that needs to be said about God, his kingdom, this life, about all of us--it is not an exaggeration to suggest that in this commentary Fr. Schmemann provides us with a map for seeing anew the purpose and measure of our whole life. Fr. Schmemann awakens in us a fresh understanding of these familiar petitions."

This short little book, 97 pages, written by one of Eastern Orthodoxy's most respected spokesmen of the 20th century, transcends the distinctiveness of the Orthodox Christian tradition to provide fresh, simple, yet challenging, insights into the prayer that unites Christians of all traditions.

This would be an excellent gift book for someone who is just beginning (or even exploring) the Christian journey, or for someone who has been a Christian for a long time and could use a little "refresher course" on the meaning and importance of the Lord's Prayer.

The copy I read will soon be a confirmation gift for a Lutheran young man who is dear to my heart.

This book is highly recommended.

This book provides a very good theological discussion of the liturgical traditions of the Orthodox Church. The author has meant it to be an outline of Christian world view, stemming from the liturgical experience of the sacraments in the Orthodox Church. Late Alexander Schmemann proves himself a good teacher as well as a reputed theologian through this book.

The author feels and expresses in the forward that if he were to rewrite the book it would be different. The appendices need to become the integral part of the book. I felt that the sacrament of penance was not given the due importance. Yet a student of Sacramental Theology is sure to find this book enlightening.

I first read this book as a Protestant and immediately began to draw comparisons with Lewis. Not that Lewis ever addressed liturgical theology, but the winsome writing style of Schmemman and the word/pictures that he evokes in one's mind reminded me of the great Cambridge "Don". Schmemman offers a Christian view of the world that has as it's pillar the Church and her Mysteries, particularly the Divine Liturgy. A clear presentation for those inquiring about the Orthodox Faith and a book to be read over and over as the truths presented begin to take hold.

Father Alexander Schmemann, of blessed memory, explains in a stunningly articulate and beautiful work the Orthodox approach to sacramentality. Father Alexander's book is less concerned with issues of "validity" and "form", and much more concerned with intrinsic meaning and spirituality. For Father Alexander, the Christian life is quintessentially Eucharistic in nature, and it is against this background that the remainder of life is imbued with sacredness and meaning. This is a brief work, but an excellent read both for Orthodox Christians as well as others who wish to understand the true meaning of Christian sacramental life.

Father Alexander Schmemann is one of the greatest theologians and teachers America has ever known, and he was very open in these journals. They are a valuable look into the heart of a great man. His honest desciption of his vision of the ecclesiastical world, his own failings, and the realities of seminary life may be eye-opening to some, perhaps even discouraging. But his tenderness and sensitivity to the world saturate almost every page, and his rich wisdom and deep faith will challenge every reader. Here is the spiritual life of an authentically human Orthodox Christian.

This book is an edited compendium of entries from the personal diaries of Fr. Schmemann, discovered after his death in 1983. Fr. Schmemann was a noted theologian of the Eastern Orthodox Church, whose journal, spanning the last 10 years of his life, very personally, lay out his reflections on his life, his work, and the meaning of Christianity in the world today.

Very refreshingly for someone deep within academic circles, his views on life and the role of Christianity are very un-stuffy. He completely dismisses as boring scholastic-style theological debating, and thus comes to a simple realization and exposition: that the role of the Church should be concerned with eschatology (a concern for final things -- life, death, the contradiction between the Church being in the world but not of the world), and the transmission of the meaning of the Incarnation to the world by knowledge of the joy at the heart of the concept of the Word-made-flesh, and the teaching of the Eucharist (communion) as the symbol of the victory of Christ over death, and the liturgical forms of the Church as a link to that existence beyond time.

Beyond that, Fr. Schmemann's journals show no patience for the petty intrigues of church politics, nor for the "maximalist" abberations of those around him -- For him the Church was the quiet harbor and home for the paradoxes of Christian teaching, not the arena in which extremists of any ilk should parade, whether ultra-traditionalist or modern-reductionalists (i.e. Church as social agency, and nothing more).

While seeing nothing rivaling Christianity in eastern religions like Bhuddism or Hinduism, it is interesting for me to see the parallels between some of Fr. Schmemann's thinking and some aspects of Zen Bhuddism. Like a Zen master, Fr. Schmemman had no patience for pettiness, or for elaborate debates along the lines of how many angels on the head of a pin. He took delight in the very simplest aspects of existence: the weather, the natural world around him. For all his wonderful mastery of exposition and dialogue, he seemed to relish his quiet times the most. A clarifying no-mindedness was more important to him than intrigues about who can't get along with whom.

A fascinating segment of his journal concerns his contact with author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose maniacal and exclusive focus on Russia, and Russia-as-victim at the hand of others, was not something Fr. Schmemann could identify with. While Fr. Schmemann's roots were Russian (or more specifically, in the Russian emigree world of Paris in the 30s and 40s), he saw himself as beyond any suffocating association with nationalism, when his own mission was about the Church in the West.

That above all makes Fr. Schmemann remarkable: He traveled the world, lectured all over Western Christendom to many Western Christian denominations, and kept his focus on the "big picture" of the world, salvation, life and death -- ever insisting that the Church be concerned with the fundamental Christian message regarding these big questions, and not fall into petty ghettoization.

I recommend this book for anyone interested in understanding the life of a major Christian thinker, and his views on where the Church should be. For anyone familiar with Fr. Schmemann's other works, this book is indispensible as the keystone in an arch.

Richard John Neuhaus has a beautifully touching review of the "Journals" and tribute to Father Schmemann (the dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary who died in 1983) in the January 2001 issue of "First Things" magazine. The seven-page article has extensive quotes from the book, including Schmemann's friendship with Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Father Neuhaus (Roman Catholic), who became friends with Fr. Schmemann (Eastern Orthodox) in his last years, terms him a true "man in full." I'm looking forward to reading the book, to learn more about his impressions of America (he moved here in the 1950s from Paris, after growing up in Estonia), his efforts at ecumenism, as well as his great love for the Divine Liturgy. Schmemann writes: "All of life flows out of -- and is connected with -- the Liturgy!"

As other reviewers have noted, this book has many prayers used by Orthodox Christians in personal devotions. It also has some materials used for public worship, such as scripture lessons for the Twelve Great Feasts and for the Sundays of Great Lent, as well as certain Sunday and weekday troparia (theme-hymns).

Originally published in 1945, its language does predate today's interest in "Modern English for worship". Also, having first been published by an Anglican-Orthodox fellowship, rather than by an Orthodox jurisdiction, the book itself might not necessarily be used by large numbers of Orthodox Christians in English-speaking lands (they might use other collections of these prayers prepared by their own Churches).

However, those other collections might be less accessible to people outside Orthodoxy than this one, which can be ordered so easily through Amazon. It can therefore introduce inquirers to a portion of the rich treasury of Orthodox prayer.

This little book of prayers has changed my life. Coming from a non-liturgical background, this book introduced a foriegn structure into my normally spontenous prayer life. Over the years, it has opened a new world of spiritual formation in my life. Along the way, these simple prayers have stirred me to a greater vision of the awesomeness of our Creator. "Holy God. Holy and Mighty. Holy Immortal. Have mercy on us."

This small purple book (originally published in Great Britain in 1945) contains prayers of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, prayers from which any reader can derive joy and benefit and fitting words to praise the one God in three Persons, God who is Light and Life, Transcendence and Immanence, Majesty and Mercy.

There are morning prayers, evening prayers, prayers for different occasions, anthems and hymns for saints and holy feasts (troparia and kontakia), the Orders of Confession according to Greek and Slavonic uses (in English), prayers for use before and after the reception of Holy Communion, and a calendar of the saints who are honoured in holy Orthodoxy.

The "O Heavenly King" can be found on page 2, prayers to the Theotokos on page 8, a prayer of St John Chrysostom "according to the hours of the day and night" on pp. 14-15 (this prayer, or series of short prayers, quite lovely); Metropolian Philaret's prayer where he dares not ask for either cross or consolation, on p. 24; a lengthy and lovely prayer in verse by St Symeon the New Theologian, beginning on page 71, and a penitential pre-Communion prayer of surpassing beauty ("Thou hast smitten me, O Christ, with yearning; and with thy divine love hast thou changed me") on page 77.

The language is reminiscent of earlier days in the life of the Church (thees and thous), and when psalms are quoted, it is the 1662 Book of Common Prayer version that is used. This comparatively young, Western, Roman Catholic reader values this small purple book, A Manual of Eastern Orthodox Prayers, for its loveliness of language, its acute awareness of -- and profound humility before -- Divine Beauty, and its recognition (often absent in the language of modern Western Christianity) that God is Majesty, and that as we approach him, a feeling of awe is not malapert.

I think this book offers a good introduction to Eastern Orthodoxy. It is easy to understand. Over several places, the author has casted invaluable insight to the historical development of the church.

The author's perspective of history seems to have adopted Hegel's view of thesis + antithesis => synthesis.

This is another important work from the Orthodox scholar Alexander Schmemann worthy of our attention. It was written originally in Russian for the Orthodox people and then translated into English for the sake of the western audience, largely Catholic and Protestant. The difficult and intriguing path of the Orthodox Church through the centuries is the subject matter of the book and it is narrated and interpreted in a scholarly manner here providing a sourcebook for ecumenical dialogue. In commenting on the difficult road of Orthodoxy through the centuries focussed on Byzantium, the author has endeavored to avoid any polemic against Western Christendom in an effort to understand the issues from a neutral standpoint. As a fairly accurate and dependable summary of the history of Eastern Orthodoxy, it is valuable to anyone intending to learn more about the Christian Church from the historical perspective.

Fr. Schmemann raises questions and tries to answer the role of the Orthodox Church in the future and dealing specifically with important topics such as theology, eschatology, world, state, and the Orthodox expierence (just to name a few things).

Especially interesting chapters are "The World in Orthodox Thought and Expierence", "A Meaningful Storm", and "Freedom in the Church." This entire book is interesting, thought provoking and he is quick to critizes the Orthodox Church where it is needed.

His assertions are well thoughtout and as always, Schmemann is direct; however, at times the book does "bog down." Schmemann, though direct in his positions, could, I think, be more concise in his "wording" or "mechanics" - hence the four stars.

Otherwise, a great book worth reading.