Teol. dr, Senior leturer
Grant White is Senior Lecturer in Eastern Christian Studies and specializes in the history and theology of Christian liturgical traditions. He received his A.B. degree in Comparative Religion from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in Theology (liturgical studies) from the University of Notre Dame. He also studied Syriac language and literature at Oxford University as a Fulbright scholar. He has taught in universities and institutions of theological higher education in the United States, England, and Finland. Most recently Grant taught hybrid courses in the D.Min. and master’s degree programs at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and courses in art and spirituality at the University of the Arts, Helsinki. He has also served as Principal of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge, England.
His scholarly and teaching work revolve around the question of the roles and functions of liturgical practices in the construction of meaning in late modernity. As such, his research and teaching embrace a range of disciplines from comparative liturgy to ritual studies, church history, history of theology, hermeneutics, history of ideas, aesthetics, and art history. He is interested in studying how Orthodox liturgical traditions are enacted in our own day, and in the questions such contemporary celebrations raise around the issues of tradition, continuity and change, Christian formation, and Christian identity. He is also interested in the roles of liturgy in contemporary ecumenical dialogue.